319 responses to “Week in review – science edition”

Internal and external forcing of multidecadal Atlantic climate variability over the past 1200 years [link]

the apparent link between Atlantic multidecadal variability and regional to hemispheric climate does not arise solely from a common response to external drivers, and may instead reflect dynamic processes.

Temperatures are changing in natural cycles and we do not cause them. This process is simple, robust and well bounded. It snows more when oceans are warm and thawed, as is now. It snows less when oceans are cold and frozen, as in the little ice age.

Dr. Curry and this blog (!) are quoted. Of course the alarmists are against it, claiming the science is settled. Such a debate could set the stage for reversing the EPA endangerment finding, on the grounds of uncertainty. EPA just delayed the horrendous ozone rule, arguing uncertainty, so Pruitt knows this strategy.

A Red Team vs Blue Team debate might provide useful educational content. Almost everything that is presently available at the K-12 level is one-sided, on the alarmist side. It is not a matter of the students getting into the climate change debate, which can be very technical. It is a matter of seeing that the debate is real. It is like going to a laboratory and seeing that the science is real.

Russell, I really have no idea what you are talking about and I suspect you don’t either. Have you read my Strategic Plan? It has nothing to do with Climate Debate Daily, which while good was not about delivering skeptical educational content. That is my goal.

A Red Team vs Blue Team debate might provide useful educational content. Almost everything that is presently available at the K-12 level is one-sided, on the alarmist side.

The most important thing the students need to understand is that there is not threat and global warming is beneficial, not damaging, if the Social Cost of Carbon is negative (i.e. a benefit). What is most needed is for a substantial part of the climate research expenditure and effort to be diverted from trying to understand and project climate change, to estimating the real, total economic impact of global warming – as Tol and other’s have been doing but have had to rely on sparse to negligible objective, unbiased, competent studies of impacts.

Remind the students, in the end politically sustainable policy decisions always boil down to “It’s the Economics, Stupid“

The Red Teams first have to debate among themselves. For example the solar people versus the GCR people. The UHI people versus the CO2-outgassing people. The planetary cycles versus the ocean cycles. After a few rounds they get a winner that they all agree with, and that gets to go up against the Blue Team. It’s like the Americas Cup.

Presumably both teams will exhibit a variety of opinions, climate sensitivity for example. Nor should there be a winner, as that would depend entirely on who the judges were. The point of the exercise is to illuminate and clarify the specific differences, not to pick a winner.

For that matter a one percent sample of the more technical comments made here, say 8,500, would provide a much finer grained picture of the debate than would the exchange of large documents proposed for the red-blue team debate. Most of the issues involve a great deal of back and forth. A single line of argument might require dozens of specific point-counterpoint exchanges. That is the nature of the issue tree.http://www.stemed.info/reports/Wojick_Issue_Analysis_txt.pdf

Jim D: Selecting the fastest boat to defend the America’s Cup is at once an exercise in technology assessment and team building. Having crewed in the ’88 trials, and before and since seen Burt Rutan help win it back, keep it, and lose it, I remain mystified as to the disparity between his hydrodyanmic genius at making things go fast ,and his reluctance to acknowledge the realities of climate forcing.- or for that matter, archaeology.

“…the science speaks for itself.”
According to the IPCC, the cloud feedbacks have a 1/3rd chance of being negative.
2013 Effective Climate Sensitivity: “ECS is likely between 1.5°C and 4.5°C” IPCC AR5
Likely means 66% confident.
While we have information according to the IPCC to make policy, its focus is still lacking. Any urgency is masked by the science.

Ragnaar:
Nobody is happy the value of CO2 doubling sensititvity has yet to converge, and I’m among those who have complained in Foreign Affairs . But looking at the roll out of the >60 peer reviewed estimate published over the last century, fully 40 are in the 2 to 3 degree C range, so the IPCC is stating the obvious when it uses the word ‘Likely’

I do wish they would dispense with ‘executive summaries’- besides the temptation they present to those with existing policy agendas,
they’re almost as bad a read as the multivolume AR’s themselves .

“Fortunately, many groups have performed ensemble integrations, that is, multiple integrations with a single model using identical radiative forcing scenarios but different initial conditions. Ensemble integrations yield estimates of the variability of the response for a given model. They are also useful in determining to what extent the initial conditions affect the magnitude and pattern of the response. Furthermore, many groups have now performed model integrations using similar radiative forcings. This allows ensembles of model results to be constructed (see Chapter 9, Section 9.3; see also the end of Chapter 7, Section 7.1.3 for an interesting question about ensemble formation).

In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system�s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.” http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm

Nor have we progressed very far in perturbed physics models. Likely is not a word that comes naturally to mind.

Climate science is of course far from monolithic – although the clear consensus is that that non-linear dynamics dominate climate model evolution over longer terms. Hence – irreducible imprecision.

What we get from the Red Blue process is that all of the things either Red or Blue conveniently leave out of conclusions, you are guaranteed the other side will highlight the problems

There is less risk of data torture as a result, so Red Blue would deal with sloppy work like Gergis 2016, the Hockeystick and bogus “it’s the sun” papers, and other such awful work posing as science.

The Pro AGW side has been allowed to ignore evidence and close it’s ears to criticism of their work because the media and bureaucrats have already chosen a side. They constantly misrepresent science.

The red team will allow is to drag all of this murky stuff into the mainstream, and as such (non academic people in general WILL be better informed and know what is certain and what is wishful thinking (hockeystick)

Steven, you do not seem to understand the basic nature of what the scientific method is. The hypothesis was made that there is a problem resulting from human production of excess CO2, and the result would be a disaster. Skeptics (and if you are not a skeptic on any hypothesis, you are not a scientist) examined the data available, and the proposed consequences of the hypothesis, and falsified several claims, while other claims are still too early to support or falsify. Even one critical claim being falsified disproves a hypothesis, and either a modified hypothesis is required to restart the issue, or the issue is dead. The fact that humans increased the CO2 is supportable. The fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is also valid. The problem is sensitivity and feedback effects, and there the hypothesis failed big. Computer models failed in a big way. The troposphere hot spot is not supported. The increased water vapor is confined to the lower atmosphere only, and thus does not increase feedback. I could go on, but the fact is that there is not a single critical feature of the data that supports a large CO2 effect. A small effect is likely, and skeptics agree to that, but that is not the argument. Additionally, skeptics do not need an explanation or model of why the temperature rose a modest amount following the little ice age, only those that claim a hypothesis need to support them, the skeptics only need to falsify them, and even one claim falsified is enough to make the hypothesis invalid.

“Interdecadal 20th century temperature deviations, such as the accelerated observed 1910–1940 warming that has been attributed to an unverifiable increase in solar irradiance (4, 7, 19, 20), appear to instead be due to natural variability. The same is true for the observed mid-40s to mid-70s cooling, previously attributed to enhanced sulfate aerosol activity (4, 6, 7, 12). Finally, a fraction of the post-1970s warming also appears to be attributable to natural variability.”

RIE, they also have a secular trend accounting for all the 20th century warming through 2000 where their curve ends for some reason. The wiggles of 0.1 C are interesting and self-canceling and not relevant to the overall warming.

Do this people ever tire of lying? Last March they were all chicken little because lowest ever maximum, May 2016 they were running around scared because it was lowest May ever. The truth is we are having the season with the least melting so far in 12 years.

And temperatures in the Arctic have been well below average for months:

So what do they do? They run an article saying that we are going to have a “Phenomenal Melt Season.”

We should give them ZERO CREDIBILITY.

We are well in our way to have more September sea ice extent than 2007. No Arctic sea ice melting for the past 10 years. We are having a pause in Arctic sea ice melting, and they are responding to it by lying. They should not get away without any accountability for their lies.

Don’t need to. We have paid scientists to do that job. The problem is that some of those that do follow the ice, like Serreze or Zwally have been making outlandish predictions that are completely failing. No confidence on them.

Anyway we are back to the same old. If there is little ice is due to climate, but if there is more ice is due to weather. Transparent.

You obviously didnt follow what Serreze said this time.
2017 is on path with 2007, 2012 and 2016.
In other words top 4 status.
The FINAL number will be decided by what happens in august.
if you get arctic cyclones, given the thinness of the ice, the record
will fall. No cyclones? 2017 will be in the top 4

Bad is a value statement. After reading 70s vintage papers, there was understanding that so called Arctic Amplification tends to reduce the pole to equator gradient during winter and provide little change during summer. This (slightly) reduces the kinetic energy of the atmosphere, the energy that severe storms represent.

So, is reducing severe storms bad? It’s easy to lead the witness, but the decline of strong tornadoes in the US is certainly consistent with this.

In this light, the only way that intense energy is reduced is by reducing the temperature gradient, so if you want a more moderate climate ( meaning at least somewhat fewer severe storm events ), you have to have AA and a decrease of Arctic Sea Ice.

Now, it’s not certain all the assumptions are related or significant.
Sea ice decline may be some unknown portion natural, not CO2.
Extreme tornadic activity may be natural, not decreased gradient.
The gradient at 500mb may be determined by other factors than sfc.

Mr Mosher
I have no reason to disagree with your comments. It is an area I have spent 12 months enjoying the study of.

Currently the atmospheric pressure balance between the hemispheres is higher in the NH (above mean), and in the same range as 2007, 2012 and 2016. NH pressure reduced slightly between the 3rd to 10th June – it may bounce back. It did not rise in the SH. Pressure activity is flat in the SH, runing at mean.

The big question is – what is the volume of atmosphere available for displacement into the Arctic come August and September, coupled to the timing, location and rate of change within the lower stratosphere. This will largly influence cyclone activity in the Arctic region.

These same factors will influence the coming cyclone / hurricane season, which I predict to be on the lower end of ACE.

You obviously didnt follow what Serreze said this time.
2017 is on path with 2007, 2012 and 2016.
In other words top 4 status.

Serreze’s predictions tend to not come true. Why should I follow the predictions of a false ice prophet? If I wanted to do that I would choose Peter Wadham that is funnier. Right now sea ice extent is closer to 2014 than to 2016 and extent decrease has been the lowest in 12 years. The ice is not behaving as he says. No top 4 behavior so far. We will see come October, but I think he will be wrong, as usual.

What about there was a predicted shift in Arctic sea ice trends around 2007 by at least two articles, and ten years later with the data agreeing with this shift the fabulous climate boys still have no clue?

You ask “Do these people ever tire of lying?” I wish it were at simple. They just see things differently. Many years ago Kuhn described this phenomena, which I call “paradigm protection.” It is an unfortunately common feature of science. Observations are theory laden, so people see things in a way that supports their view.

“Good discussion of the current #Arctic sea ice melt season [link] ….”
Not really, Judy. The article appears to be by a determined climate change believer and quotes Neven and Jim Petit and one student. Plus Mark Serreze.
Mark has form. Neven and Jim put up good graph pages though Neven left one graph running at a 2012 low for 5 years because he did not want to acknowledge re icing.
Steven comments “The Set up for a record bad year is there.”
knowing full well that the set up for a pretty good year is there as well.
It is easy when a 38 year old set of measurements in a downtrend exists to say each succeeding year has a setup to be lower. And if you do it 5 years in a row one of those years will be right.
The facts are that the rate of drop off from now, early June , is unpredictable.
” top 4 status.
The FINAL number will be decided by what happens in august.
if you get arctic cyclones, given the thinness of the ice, the record
will fall. No cyclones? 2017 will be in the top 4″
So even Mosher admits we need record cyclones to blow the ice away to a record.
If we have average conditions it will only get to 4th, shame.
But what if we have good conditions???
No bad cyclones, a little record cloudiness?
A persistence of cold North Atlantic water coming in ?
–
Well it could be 9th lowest even ( there is a lot more room to make a prediction on the upside) with a modest exaggeration.
Ah well, the first message with Arctic ice is that it is never predictable so I might as well wait until September

“Cyclones reduce extent, but do they also set up for increased mass during the next winter?”
Cyclones allow warmists to claim a record extent loss due to climate change.
Quite a hoot really.
Like this one.
“if you get arctic cyclones, given the thinness of the ice, the record
will fall. ”
Not if you get increased global warming the record will fall?
The amazing 38 year old record no less.
Bit like saying if you get summer the days will be hot.
Like when you want to sell an ice cream business franchise.

“Ok, big prediction time. Within the next 7-10 days there will be a sharp drop in extent below 2012 level. If this prediction is correct I’ll explain later how it was forecast.”
Saw this line of logic elsewhere. A real win/ win situation. Kudos if it happens , forget about it if it doesn’t.
Plus spread fake news for fun.

No kidding. There is nothing new about this. That Antarctica sits almost in the stratosphere has been known by climatologists like forever and has been argued as a cause for its special climate in many articles.

Somebody there is not doing their homework reading relevant published articles about their subject of research. A very serious problem these days.

The sea level paper adjusts the historic tidal data downwards with a model output, so that it now shows acceleration when the satellite data is added and fits the IPCC predictions. Noble cause corruption?

“Why should we study the deep ocean? It’s a massive reservoir for heat & carbon [link]” The link only shows one page of an undoubtedly interesting paper.

The “deep ocean” reminded me of an interesting NASA paper,https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
It shows how climatologists are not fooled by Argo temperature measurements that mistakenly show a cooling trend. They use data from other sources, like a satellite altimetry (which shows rising sea levels, undoubtedly due to a warming ocean water) and GRACE gravimetry. Who would trust thermometers, when we have reliable if indirect proxies?

It is like measuring the distance between cities A and B. A direct measurement (a car odometer when driving from A to B) shows 300 miles. But then you compare it with Greyhound timetables and Amtrak timetables at a known bus speed and a train speed which both imply it must be 350 miles at least. Finally you use a time to fly from city center A to city center B – with an airplane speed, that’s 500 miles. The odometer must be wrong.

Bjorn Lomborg was just on the Greg Gutfeld comedy show on Fox News. Little does he know that Trump is not even for spending money on less fortunate countries, which is Lomborg’s main cause, but that subject never came up. Lomborg does his usual false choice of save the children now or use the same money to improve the energy system. It doesn’t work like that, and he is supposed to be an economist.

The global economy is worth about $100 trillion a year. To put aid and philanthropy into perspective – the total is 0.025% of the global economy. If spent on Copenhagen Consensus smart development goals such expenditure can generate a benefit to cost ratio of more than 15. If spent on the UN Sustainable Development Goals you may as well piss it up against a wall. Either way – it is nowhere near the major path to universal prosperity. Some 3.5 billion people make less than $2 a day. Changing that can only be done by doubling and tripling global production – and doing it as quickly as possible. Optimal economic growth is essential and that requires an understanding and implementation of explicit principles for effective economic governance of free markets. So what are these laws of capitalism?

“Little does he know that Trump is not even for spending money on less fortunate countries, which is Lomborg’s main cause, but that subject never came up.” As the subject never came up, how do you measure what he knows?

Nor did I expect the subject to come up on Fox News. If it was important to him that America contributes that way, he could have mentioned it and it would have made for a more useful conversation than his false equivalence. The other angle not addressed is that energy modernization, also not on Trump’s agenda, is infrastructure and spending on US jobs, money that contributes to the economy and creates global markets for US products. Perhaps that is also too heavy and serious for comedian Gutfeld’s audience.

He has made some serious errors with misconstruing the IPCC goals on emissions in the 21st century, and he did it again in the Fox interview. His supporters don’t know the difference, and won’t try to find out, so it is effective on them.

Maybe he did know, but doesn’t really care enough to bring it up. He normally seems to care, and also cares about having research into renewable energy, but these subjects don’t fly on Fox, and maybe he does know that, and was just being careful about his audience. What’s your guess?

The benefit is calculated as the price paid. People do that cost benefit when buying carbon. You get a benefit and get poorer as a result of the cost. It cancels out. The only true benefiters are those that make a profit from selling it to you.

In other words, if you’re rich the cost of carbon doesn’t matter to you being such a small percentage of your budget. If you’re less well off you make decisions to reduce its cost to you, like fuel efficient cars, taking the bus, no home air conditioning, so the amount sold does scale with the cost-benefit analysis at a personal level. Similar arguments occur for energy production methods and fuel at a national level. The number of the SCC being 10% of the price sounds about right for SCC=$40/tonne.
Tol’s remark is cryptic.

D: “You get a benefit and get poorer as a result of the cost. It cancels out.”

“…if you’re rich the cost of carbon doesn’t matter to you being such a small percentage of your budget. If you’re less well off you make decisions to reduce its cost to you, like fuel efficient cars, taking the bus, no home air conditioning, so the amount sold does scale with the cost-benefit analysis at a personal level.”

A bunch of stinking rubbish. Drop the “rich” comps, they’re not relevant to the idea you present; but for the middle class or poor think about the silly analysis. “It cancels out”: so the conclusion is that the middle class/poor don’t get a net benefit from their cost of energy. No matter how much they cut corners, that too is irrelevant, one is still left with a basic set of perceived energy needs, but if those cancel out because of cost, it means that not only that the poor don’t need a car; but any transportation (to get to work), a hot water heater, a stove, AC, heating etc, etc., because they’re no better off per the analysis you present. You believe the cost of energy cancels out the benefit, one is just as poor if they hadn’t paid for any energy is your conclusion. No net benefit. So why bother then? “The only true benefiters are those that make a profit from selling it to you”

From a Leftists sensibilities it makes perfect sense I suppose, all you need is a pile of chicken wire and a roll of duct tape to survive. Heaven forbid energy unless it’s peddled aka Fred Flintstone.

Mop-up, from your argument food and water are net benefits too. How do you evaluate the monetary amount of that benefit? What Tol does, as I understand it, is use the paid price as evaluation of that benefit. We are paying about $400/tonne for our carbon. What else would you suggest?

“When there is a difference between the price that you pay in the market and the value that you place on the product, then the concept of consumer surplus becomes a useful one to look at. This is an important idea that you can use on many occasions in your exams.”

Now South Korea has elected a loony-Left nut-job ideological government without an ounce of rational economic sense

Reuters: South Korea plans energy U-turn away from coal, nuclear
“A proposed energy U-turn by South Korea’s new government would put the environment at the center of energy policy, shifting one of the world’s staunchest supporters of coal and nuclear power toward natural gas and renewables. If implemented, the ambitious plans by the world’s fourth biggest coal importer and No.2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyer will have a big impact on producers. South Korea’s LNG imports could jump by more than 50 percent by 2030, while coal shipments could peak as early as next year. But experts warn that any move to halt construction of a raft of new coal and nuclear plants, many of which are already being built, could threaten energy security, spark claims for massive compensation and push up electricity prices.”http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-politics-energy-idUSKBN18V0EH

getting rid of coal in Korea makes perfect sense.
Roughly 50% of the air pollution in Seoul is due to transnational transport ( from China) the other 50% is from local sources.
If you ever bothered to spend any time in either Seoul or China you would know that the case for moving away from Coal is pretty clear and utterly independent of any concerns about climate change.

Coal is dead in the US.. other places will follow over time.
maybe dirt diggers down under should consider putting their dollars to work in better ways

It might be better for an advanced country like South Korea to put scrubbers on their coal plants than to disrupt their energy supply. What will they replace this coal with? If they’re doing a U-turn on nuclear, they’ll have to import even more gas.

Of course there is also constant economic growth. Mixed use planning is the holy grail the US. In Korea they have no planning and zoning laws that I could see, and they are light years ahead of the US. My in laws experienced occupation by the Japanese then were made refugees by the N Korean invasion. The change in quality of life in Korea between then and now is miraculous. Only a pampered member of the upper class would trade that for what Korea has attained to date.

Internal variability. This paper is an effort to disappear the difference between satellite and radiosonde observations of the tropical troposphere and the CMIP5 tropical troposphere hotspot. The Satellite/sonde discrepancy to CMIP5 is 3.5x. Even after Santer’s erroneous stratosphere adjustment paper of Nov 2016, it remains 1.7x. (Erroneous because, as Dr. Spencer pointed out, no stratosphere adjustment is needed in the tropics.) To claim the difference is just internal atmospheric variability and not a major model fail takes real chutzpah. More damage to ‘climate science’.

Is there a deeper reality behind the world of appearances? (Is philosophy simply harder…)

You can see it play out live, right now on Eagle Cam in Washington DC (http://www.dceaglecam.org/ ). One of the eaglets is literally, out on a limb. You can think it through ’til the cows come home but sooner or later it all comes down to faith in something… like, the scientific method, the greatest philosophical leap of mind in the history of humanity.

” science finds itself under pressure from two major concurrent and intersecting crises (Benessia et al., 2016): one concerns public trust in the evidence produced by science and its institutions; the other, the governance of science and the reproducibility of its results.”

“A key recommendation for citizens would be that their respect for the authority of science should be a circumspect one, mindful of the powerful interests and stakes involved in big and incorporated science.”

Between these two statements, the authors illustrate multiple examples of where science has gone off the rails. What I did not find was the argument that scientists had to learn how and why to say: “I don’t know”.

My experience has shown to me at least, that scientist’s hubris is the most prevalent mindset for this group and least likely to be dislodged from the caste any time soon. It is in the nature of the beast to be confident and imagine one’s self to be a “cut above” the masses because of a validated leap in intelligence, or so it seems. Ivenhoe’s lament: ” Its hard to be humble…”

Spilling over into social discourse, the not-so-humble extend themselves into realms where they are but ordinary people yet express themselves in the same certainty that has stood their careers in good stead. Going from casual conversations into public policy has skewed their mindset into believing a certain omnipotence and truthiness that is unwarranted. Selective listening and loudly stating becomes the norm.

My solution of course, besides for citizens to listen carefully and consider with circumspect, is to teach in every learning situation, from early child rearing to post graduate training the three little words: “I don’t know.” Hearing these words again and again, in various settings and by a multiplicity of people may impact discourse and mitigate some of the crisis in science. Besides, the citizenry may take to listening for experts and scientists to say: I don’t know as a yardstick to measure someone’s believability.

An excellent point regarding “I don’t know” but I would phrase it “we don’t know.” I have studied the content of K-16 (kindergarten thru undergrad college) science education carefully and it is all presented as what we know. The limits of our knowledge and the debates therein are seldom addressed, if ever. These limits and controversies are typically only met in graduate school.

“Economists have long theorized about value and how to measure it, but the debate was settled by Jevons in 1871 (Jevons, 1871). In an undistorted market, with rational and well-informed consumers and producers, the price of a good equals its marginal value (Mankiw, 2014). We are only prepared to buy something if the welfare gain of getting it is greater than the welfare loss of giving up part of our income and thus the opportunity to buy something else.”

This market value excludes social benefits of energy from – for instance – health and education. Value is not a property of carbon – but of the energy services it provides. Cost competitive low carbon energy would have a higher value and lower risk that the energy from fossil fuels.

Jevons suggested that any gain in efficiency of production – either as trade or productivity dividends – would result in increased consumption of the resource. Energy certainly seems to bear this out. Global energy supply is likely to increase by some 400% this century.

The future is cyberpunk and I doubt that there is any intervention capable of reversing this. New movements, fads, music, designer drugs, cat videos and dance moves will sweep the planet like Mexican waves in the zeitgeist. Materials will be stronger and lighter. Life will be cluttered with holographic TV’s, waterless washing machines, ultrasonic blenders, quantum computers, hover cars and artificially intelligent phones. Annoying phones that cry when you don’t charge them – taking on that role from cars that beep when you don’t put a seat belt on. Space capable flying cars will have seat belts that lock and tension without any intervention of your part. All this will use vastly more energy and materials this century as populations grow and wealth increases.

“The social cost of carbon is the damage done by emitting an additional tonne of carbon dioxide (Tol, 2011). Technically, the social cost of carbon is the net present value of the incremental future impact of climate due to a small change in emissions today. Like the price of energy, the social cost of carbon is a marginal concept – and the two are directly comparable. Indeed, the social cost of carbon is the climate incarnation of the Pigou tax (Pigou, 1920), which is conceptualized as the price correction needed, through a levy, so that private incentives (as measured by the price) are aligned with social objectives (as measured by Pigou tax) (Baumol, 1972).”

Unlike market prices – the future cost of carbon damage is unknowable. The IPCC temperature range is utterly unreliable – but at a minimum the true range of future climate evolution is from inconsequential to catastrophic change. There are social costs of carbon that are knowable – particulates, sulphur, nitrous oxide and mercury – and these are addressed in the deployment of – for instance – high efficiency, low emissions coal technology across Asia. The other emissions is an argument used by climate warriors – but is nonetheless separate from climate impacts. Peter Lang comes down on both sides of this argument. It is harmful when promoting nuclear energy and neglected when promoting fossil fuels over renewable alternatives. Mosher uses it declare coal dead. Oportunistic on both counts. Besides which – problematic emissions come from a number of sources. These other emissions remain a pollution problem where best practice regulation over multiple sectors of the global economy serves better than a blunt instrument like a Pigovian tax.

Tol argues that a Pigouvian tax on carbon would have little impact on the world economy. However, to be effective it would need to be sufficient to drive a transition to low carbon energy – and he has not estimated the cost of a transition or the impact of that on the global economy. He has guessed at a low carbon cost and assumed that that is sufficient to change supply and consumption patterns. Where there are estimates of transition costs – the costs using existing technologies are immense.

Being ineffective is worse than useless as it increases energy costs and further marginalises the global poor Jimmy D is so fond of. Nor has Lomberg neglected emissions – merely said quite explicitly and insistently that global aid should be used for high value humanitarian objectives and not the obsessive compulsive disorders of western elites. This includes investment in cheap and abundant low carbon energy – which is the true social cost of carbon.

A carbon tax based on SCC is only about 10% of its price, so this is not a deterrent. It can either be used to offset income tax, which, if done evenly is progressive and helps the poor, or it can be given as a rebate to energy consumers by subtracting a flat amount from their bills also helping the poor more, or it can be used to fund renewable energy projects or building nuclear plants, or some combination of these. In the US, the revenue would be $240 billion per year, which is a lot of spending money.

You usually disappear when I explain the wrong logic of your position. You can’t offset losses with benefits unless you have a way to transfer the money from the winners to the losers. The winners and losers are two different sets of people, mostly in different countries. It helps those losing in Africa not a bit that someone is making a killing in oil profits in Saudi Arabia. Explain how you pay for the harm done by CO2 without such a transfer. It is not the simplistic cancellation that you propose because you have implicitly assumed this transfer from winners to losers without proposing a mechanism for it.

A 10% tax on everything? It either works in facilitating higher cost, low carbon energy sources. In which case energy costs are higher, productivity drops and the revenue source dries up. Leaving the poor Jimmy loves so much worse off.
This is as obvious as day and night. But there really isn’t any point – as that 10% is not enough to effect a transition.

What is needed is lowest cost energy financing energy innovation.

“Climate change can’t be solved on the backs of the world’s poorest people,” said Daniel Sarewitz, coauthor and director of ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes. “The key to solving for both climate and poverty is helping nations build innovative energy systems that can deliver cheap, clean, and reliable power.”

In the US, it amounts to $240 billion per year. Enough to build 50 nuclear power plants per year, for example. Not peanuts in terms of what is needed for a transition. However some can be returned to support poor people if you want.

From those who benefit to those who lose under climate change. You want to offset gainers and losers, but in practice they don’t share the same money pot, so a transfer is needed to pay for the damage. How? Did you think this through? That’s even before considering that net GDP is not a humanitarian measure because it counts livelihoods in Africa at about 5% those in the US per capita. Ten people can get worse off in Africa and one gets better in the US and it is a net GDP gain. See anything wrong with that?

Peter Lang, carbon pricing will fund payment for the damage and prevention while what you propose won’t. Your proposal is a complete failure from the damage repair and prevention perspective unless you state what resources you would use for those. How are people who lose livelihoods helped by your proposal to basically do nothing? Think of your proposal from their perspective, and see where it leads you.

Another important point the chart shows is the stalling of the growth in GDP per capita growth rate since 1970. The GDP growth rate increased from about 0.1% before 1700 to 4% to 5% by 1960s-70s. Since 1974, it fell back to 3% and has not recovered to the highs achieved 40 years ago.

In short, the gullible, economically irrational, ideologically-driven, loony Left, the eco-evangellists, renewable energy advocates and the anti-nuclear protest movement caused the slow down in the rate of GDP per capita growth and therefore, a slower rate of improvement in human well-being than could have been achieved if not for the impacts of the policies pushed by and voted for by these people. Jim D, Willard and others are examples of the types that advocate for the polices that slow progress.

GDP is now decoupled from emissions, as GDP rises while emissions fall in more advanced countries while the less advanced countries try to follow suit. Modern countries, and even China, are reducing their carbon intensities, and that is the new trend. Fossil fuels are being replaced and left in the ground. This is incentivized both by energy security and the environment.

Jim D:
“GDP is now decoupled from emissions, as GDP rises while emissions fall in more advanced countries…”

I think that’s a bit of an overstatement. So much of our total energy production is still dependent on fossil fuels. We cannot shut down fossil fuels and see no impact. I think it was natural gas, and now we need to find more of it, and have support for getting it out of the ground. The credit goes to…… Fossil fuel companies for figuring out how to do this. And some credit goes to President Obama (enough support for fracking) and none to Sanders.

Wind and solar get backhanded credit for being non-dispatchable favoring natural gas over coal.

The Paris timeline isn’t an immediate shutdown, it is a reduction of a few percent per year. This time scale may be realized, but the anti-Paris people keep misrepresenting or misunderstanding it. Natural gas isn’t the problem because it is very limited. Coal and whatever is in the Arctic needs to be left in the ground. Solar is trending to be cheaper than what coal is left because that is trending up in price, so even if economics alone rules the path, coal prices itself out of the competition.

“GDP is now decoupled from emissions, as GDP rises while emissions fall in more advanced countries while the less advanced countries try to follow suit.”

What’s happening is a transition from a global economy supported by population growth to a global economy that will be suffering a drag from falling working age population (employment in the graphic below):

Economies are driven by profits. Since producers will no longer be able to profit from simply having more consumers to sell to, they will have to profit by increased productivity. And since productivity goes hand in hand with energy efficiency, falling carbon intensity is baked in the cake. Governments don’t need to intervene, in fact, they probably increase inefficiency and and screw things up if they do.

“Modern countries, and even China, are reducing their carbon intensities, and that is the new trend.”
It’s part of a long term trend:

This trend in China spans the strictly communist regime to whatever it is we’re calling today’s government/economy in China. That’s not surprising because governments don’t mandate this ratio. Rather, it evolves from individual business transactions that Adam Smith described, whether in a planned economy or not.

Robert I. Ellison
Re: “at a minimum the true range of future climate evolution is from inconsequential to catastrophic change.”
Correct to “from highly beneficial to inconsequential to catastrophic change.”

Well no – you suggested that there was some benefit of warming from the LIA. Although I doubt that everyone – or everything – benefited. Nonetheless –
inconsequential in the larger scheme of things. Not do I believe that warming is guaranteed in future.

Robert I. Ellison
Try studying the evidence on the impact of warming and cooling on civilizations:

The climate “change” that ushered in the Medieval Warm Period was a strikingly fortunate event for human health and welfare. By contrast, when cooler temperatures ended the Medieval Warm Period and ushered in the Little Ice Age, crop production declined, famines grew more regular, extreme weather and climate events worsened, and human health and welfare suffered.

When the Little Ice Age fortunately ended a little more than a century ago, crop production once again increased, famines became rarer, extreme weather events became less frequent and severe, and human health and welfare dramatically improved.

I am not all that clear on the global impact of high latitude NH cooling. Nor can I tell you what the next 100 years will bring. Neither are the unknowable risks limited to temperature. The assumptions are proliferating.

It all adds up to arguing from ignorance as I said. Are you willing to argue that ignorance of the future evolution of Earth systems under the pressure of a changing atmospheric composition is not complete? Good luck with that.

“Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist” once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN’s climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. “Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century,” the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as “cloud whitening” to reflect the sun’s heat back into the outer atmosphere.

In a Guardian interview, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global healthcare.”

Thus article is from 2010. There has been not change in the position this century. Many people have discussed a small, hypothecated tax to invest in research and development. It is fundamentally not a ‘revenue neutral’ tax.

McKitrick says that carbon taxes can replace other taxes with possibly less distortion – as long as regulations and targets are removed. Difficult to see that gaining support with Jimmy D – and yet he seems to endorse it.

There is little point in discussing taxes at all – it is flogging a dead horse.

“In the US, it amounts to $240 billion per year. Enough to build 50 nuclear power plants per year, for example. Not peanuts in terms of what is needed for a transition. However some can be returned to support poor people if you want.”

How does he not get the point? It’s more likely 10 to 20 nuclear plants by increasing capital expenditure on generation by 250% per year and building high cost power generation. Much lower energy productivity.

It’s about 6% of the US Federal budget. Of course you may always reduce taxes and services elsewhere or print money. Give it to the poor – this is the magic cake you can have and eat. Remembering that if you actually do succeed – something far from assured given the state of current technology – there is no more carbon to tax or revenue to redistribute.

We are all in favour of energy innovation – it’s just that taxing the productive base of economies – and regulating for high cost energy – seems counterproductive. Do you get the impression that they prefer it that way?

It is only fair. We can oppose fossil fueled generation in Africa and India, twitter on about climate damages and oppose low cost approaches to energy security.

“Faced with a perceived conflict between expanding global energy access and rapidly reducing greenhouse emissions to prevent climate change, many environmental groups and donor institutions have come to rely on small-scale, decentralized, renewable energy technologies that cannot meet the energy demands of rapidly growing emerging economies and people struggling to escape extreme poverty. The UN’s flagship energy access program, for example, claims that “basic human needs” can be met with enough electricity to power a fan, a couple of light bulbs, and a radio for five hours a day.” https://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/our-high-energy-planet

It’s extreme hypocrisy. Happily – they are not taxing energy and are putting the funds to productive ends instead.

I doubt human caused GHG emissions are a threat. In fact, I doubt they are or will do more harm than good.

Carbon pricing will not succeed. Nor will any climate policy that will do more economic harm than good over the long term.

GHG emissions are not dirty or toxic pollution in the normally accepted meaning on the word. Reducing GHG emissions does not stop smog, or genuine pollution that is causing 3.8 million premature deaths per year.

A transition to nuclear power is justified irrespective of any beliefs about the threat of GHG emissions. Nuclear is justified for these reasons:

1. It is the only sustainable energy source – it can supply all the world’s energy needs effectively indefinitely. In stark contrast, renewables can never supply a substantial proportion of the world’s electricity, let alone its energy requirements. Fossil fuels should be preserved for other uses.

2. Nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity and has been since the first nuclear power plant went into service (in 1954). If the transition to nuclear had continued instead of having been disrupted in the late 1960’s, 9.5 million premature deaths caused by other technologies would have been avoided.

3. Nuclear has effectively unlimited potential for cost reductions. It could be around 10% of current cost now if the pre 1970’s learning rates had continued. Human well-being would have been well ahead of where it is now.

4. It could be supplying 66% of current world electricity consumption by now if the pre-1976 deployment rates had continued.

5. It is the most environmentally benign of all electricity generation technologies on a full life cycle basis.

6. It is a reliable supplier of baseload electricity and if required can be fully load-following (as it has been for over 60 years in ships and submarines).

The anti-nukes (mostly they are the same types as the climate alarmists and renewable energy advocates), have a hell of a lot to answer for.

It is too bad about the collapse of nuclear power. The regulators drove it to expense and NIMBY attacks shut down new plants. Even now, the earthquake and Tsunami fears in inland stable areas prevent its use. Hope somehow advanced nuclear and then fusion can work through the obstacles with a more regulatory logical administration.

The solar poster child for carbon tax and subsidies is the Spanish solar farms producing electricity at night because of the subsidies and firing up the diesal generator sets as renewable subsidy fueled illogic.
Scott

“7 A defensible assumption is that if the high level of public support for nuclear power that existed in the 1950s and early 1960s had continued, the early learning rates may have continued and, therefore, the accelerating global deployment rate may have continued. With cheaper electricity, global electricity consumption may have been higher, thus causing faster development and deployment. In that case, we could have greatly improved designs by now – small, flexible and more advanced than anything we might envisage, with better safety, performance and cost effectiveness. The aviation industry provides an example of technology and safety improvements achieved over the same period in another complex system with high public concern about safety: from 1960 to 2013, US aviation passenger-miles increased by a factor of 19 while aviation passenger safety (reduction in fatalities per passenger-mile) increased by a factor of 1051 (US Department of Transportation, 2016), a learning rate of 87% for passenger safety.

8 Many studies discuss the causes of the cost increases (e.g., Cohen (1990), Grubler (2010), and Lovering (2016) cites a number of studies). A likely root-cause of many of the suggested causes was the growing concern about the safety of nuclear power, fanned by the anti-nuclear protest movement, which began in the mid-1960s (Wyatt, 1978; Daubert and Moran, 1985).

“The release of radioisotopes from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in March 2011 amounts to the largest-ever accidental release of radiation to the ocean. It came mostly in the form of iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137, the primary radioisotopes released from the reactors, reported Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

All of these substances can cause long-term health problems, said Buesseler, but iodine-131 has a half-life of just eight days and so would be effectively gone from the environment in a matter of weeks. It was cesium-134 and cesium-137, with their half-lives of two and 30 years, respectively, which would remain in the ocean for years and decades to come.

In fact, most of the cesium present in today’s oceans, Buesseler noted, is a remnant of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing conducted by the United States, France, and Great Britain during the 1950s and ’60s. Lesser amounts are attributable to the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 and to local sources, such as the dumping of low-level waste from England’s Sellafield nuclear facility into the Irish Sea.

Prior to Fukushima, however, the levels of cesium-137 off the coast of Japan, as cataloged by Michio Aoyama at the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan and others, were among the world’s lowest, at around 2 becquerels per cubic meter (1 becquerel, or Bq, equals one radioactive decay event per second). Against this background, the concentrations measured in early April of 2011 were all the more alarming. At the source waters closest to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Co., concentrations of up to 60 million becquerels per cubic meter were reported, high enough to cause reproductive and health effects in marine animals.” http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/radioisotopes-in-the-ocean

There have been hundreds of nuclear power plant accidents – and the evidence of elevated radioactivity in regions of the world’s oceans is apparent.

The health and environmental effects are largely unknown – but could have been avoided if designs and materials had been allowed to evolve over decades at the demonstration scale. Nuclear power has been demonstrably unsafe – creating it’s own woes for the industry.

It is not the last time that new and powerful technologies will emerge. In principle the way to survive these is to delay deployment until the technology is sufficiently mature. One of the problems with nuclear technology was the conflation of weapons and power generation. This dictated that the technology went down the wrong development path. Moderated light water reactors rather than fast neutron.

It is almost safe enough now – new fuel rod materials can improve that. The problems of waste management and plant decommissioning are still unsolved at any practical level.

While new nuclear designs have waste, proliferation, safety, capital expenditure and cost advantages – existing designs are feasible and cost competitive only in limited applications. Moreover – I suggest that insistence that nuclear power has always been safe and opposition is fueled by irrational fear is counterproductive.

TMI had as much to do, probably more in fact, with control room instrument layout, than the operators not knowing the difference between a navy nuke and their commercial plant.

My dad was asked to perform a final I&C review before the plant went operational. His report might have well been used as the incident root cause evaluation, it was that close of a comparison. The utility decided it wasn’t a significant enough issue to spent several hundred thousand and delay startup by a few months.

Paris adds up to a 3.7 billion tonne increase in energy emissions to 2030. Slightly lower rate of increase – but far from a game changer.

“Cleaner coal technology refers to a diverse suite of technologies that can be deployed to reduce or eliminate various emissions. Broadly they fall into three categories.

1.Pollution control technology – During the burning of coal, emissions can occur that cause concerns about air quality, but technologies exist to address this challenge. These include electrostatic precipitators, fabric filters, selective catalytic reduction systems, wet and dry scrubbers, sorbents and activated carbon injection. The technology can reduce the emissions of pollutants from coal combustion by between 90% and 99.9% by stripping out the pollutants before they are emitted into the atmosphere.

2.High efficiency low emission (HELE) – HELE coal-generation utilises higher temperatures and pressures, compared to older less efficient subcritical technologies. These include supercritical (SC), ultra-supercritical (USC) and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) systems. HELE units emit 25–33% less carbon than the average global existing power fleet and up to 40% less than the oldest technologies.

3.Carbon capture and storage (CCS) – The technology involves capturing the CO2 produced by electricity generation, compressing it for transportation and then injecting it deep into a rock formation at a carefully selected and safe site, where it is permanently stored. Alternatively, the CO2 can be used in industrial applications, such as to increase pressures in oil reservoirs in a process known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR).” http://www.aseanenergy.org/resources/reports/aseans-energy-equation/

We dirt diggers will continue to dig coal for ASEAN, Indian and Chinese markets for decades to come. Coal and gas continue to be the cheapest options where there are cheap, local supplies. Gas prices are increasing against coal leaving coal and nuclear as the economic options. While I am in favour of low penetration of wind and solar in specific applications – the technology hardly adds up to a reliable, low cost supply in the west – let alone emerging markets.

Non-sense. Reducing CO2 emissions as a goal in and of it self is silly. Developing technologies which cause this to happen because of their benefit outside of that goal is prudent and likely to reduce emissions and capture for use better than setting policy to achieve that goal. We are likely to reduce emission and extract CO2 for agriculture and other economic uses to the point that it causes problems for the developing world. I’m far more afraid of reducing emissions growth than continuing to increase them.

Reducing CO2 emissions – and the consequent risk from changes to climate, hydrology and ecology is the prudent course. There is here an entrenched ideological opposition to this – but it is all ‘argument from ignorance’.

Electricity prices in Australia’s eastern states (and South Australia) are increasing by around 20% on 1 July – thanks to decades of ideologically driven government interventions, in response to activism by irresponsible, ignorant activists and activist organisations. Australia’s average electriciyt prices are now double US’s. 20 years ago they were cheaper. If not for the economically irrational interventions, real prices for electricity would be declining over time.

“Ironically, in the short-term, Yallourn W should be hugely profitable. Since Engie announced Hazelwood’s closure last November power prices have almost trebled.

Even though the lights will stay on — the market regulator says there is enough power in the system to guarantee energy security — the energy market has tightened considerably. So much so that the futures price for wholesale power has increased from $54 per megawatt hour in December to more than $140 per megawatt hour now.

And that makes the three remaining Latrobe Valley coal fired generators cash cows.

“Those plants really are going to be laughing all the way to the bank in the next few years,” Kobad Bhavnagri from Bloomberg New Energy Finance told RN Breakfast.

“They’ve always been cash cows … because the brown coal in the Latrobe Valley is very cheap.

Renewables have added about 10% to my bill. That can get worse with higher penetrations. Higher retail prices otherwise – in the past few years – have more to do with network upgrading and tight gas supplies. The former seems a case of gold plating – the latter of supply falling short of demand.

The latest retail price rises stem from wholesale electricity price rises even before the closure of Hazelwood. Hazelwood was 60 years old and had to go. But the price rises this year are opportunistic gauging on the wholesale and futures markets.

From the recent Finkel report.

The support is clearly there for a new HELE (high efficiency, low emission) coal generation in Northern Queensland. The welter of Adani mine litigation mention in the article – btw – is frivolous litigation funded by a foundation associated with Hilary Clinton. The coal from Adani is slated for power in India.

From my point of view, the prevalent belief, according to which the recent climate warming is caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossile fuels, is without any evidense in reality. By my experience, any one, who is able to scrutinize this her/himself, has a possibility to find, that the kind of anthropogenic warming seems to be too minimal to be distinguished in reality. In its entirety the complexity of climate warming seems to make any solving of climate problems be very and even too challenging. For instance the present, as hypotetic regarded, political consensus on anthropogenic warming of climate seems mainly to base on ideological and institutional belief. That kind of complex problems must be approached gradually, by taking into consideration the potentially interdisciplinary nature of any climate problem.

Judith Curry, you have written: ”While I make no pretense at any particular wisdom in understanding complex geopolitics, the current trajectory of the Paris Climate Agreement is not going to change the Earth’s climate in any meaningful way.”

Judith Curry, I have even earlier here written, that I agree with your statement: “The challenge is to redirect the political angst over this issue into productive directions that increase the well being of humans and ecosystems.”

I have understood, that your first priority is to find the real role of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on recent climate warming. Thereafter you are able more exactly to focus on both natural climate changes and extreme weather events, and that makes you ‘to redirect the political angst over this issue into productive directions that increase the well being of humans and ecosystems.’

Already you have stated, that the climate sensitivity, on which the Paris agreement is based, is deeply uncertain and exaggerated. In addition there are experts from several points of view, who have in reality observed that the climate sensitivity is so low that it can not be distingguished from zero (e,g. Cripwell, Wojick, Arrak etc; and even Scafetta and Lindzen have claimed that climate sensitivity is less than 1C or 0.5C).

Even UN politicians in the Rio conference 1992 stated that anthropogenic warming caused by CO2 emissions from fossile fuels can not finally be proved to be true. In spite of that, there the risk of warming was then regarded as so threatening, that precautionary and cost-effective cuttings of CO2 emissions were regarded to be necessary. Anyhow, the cuttings of CO2 emissions according to the Kyoto protocol caused only losses. As I have even earlier claimed, that was not caused only by disproportionate targets between state governments, but even by lack of knowledge concerning influences of both anthropogenic and total amount of atmospheric CO2 on climate warming.

In my comment https://judithcurry.com/2017/05/02/nyes-quadrant/#comment-848558 I have tried myself to scrutinize the recent climate warming being in general regarded as man-made; as summary I have stated: ”As anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not dominate the CO2 content in atmosphere, and as even total content of CO2 in atmosphere does not dominate the climate temperature, the influence of CO2 from fossile fuels – and even from other anthropogenic CO2 sources – is so minimal that it cannot be distinguished from zero. This means that cutting of anthropogenic CO2 emissions from any anthropogenic source is unnecessary and causes only losses.”

This issue means, that the targets to cut anthropogenic CO2 emissions according to the Paris agreement must be cancelled, the sooner the better. I do not regard it as impossible, that US and EU experts together will be unbiassed precursors to reach a really working solution concerning influence of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on climate warming.

“From my point of view, the prevalent belief, according to which the recent climate warming is caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions from fossile fuels, is without any evidense in reality.” – Lauri

Every temperature record shows warming over the last 100+ years, that is evidence ACO2 emissions are a part of the cause. The physics describing how greenhouse gases cause warming are solid. Judy does not dispute that. Lindzen does not dispute that. The temperature increase you acknowledge is the evidence. How much it contributes is the question.

“Already you have stated, that the climate sensitivity, on which the Paris agreement is based, is deeply uncertain and exaggerated. In addition there are experts from several points of view, who have in reality observed that the climate sensitivity is so low that it can not be distingguished from zero (e,g. Cripwell, Wojick, Arrak etc; and even Scafetta and Lindzen have claimed that climate sensitivity is less than 1C or 0.5C).” – Lauri

Judy is a climate expert, Lindzen is a climate expert. Neither of them claim CO2 sensitivity is so low it cannot be distinguished from zero. Cripwell (RIP), was a needlepoint expert. He used to litter this blog with that baseless assertion time and again. He could offer no evidence of his own that ACO2 could have a climate sensitivity indistinguishable from zero… because he didn’t believe the GHE theory. So if you are putting yourself in that dragonslayer camp, which Curry and Lindzen are not members of, it puts you far outside of any productive science and policy discussions with regard to the climate. How much CO2 contributes to the warming is the question… zero is not the answer.

“I have tried myself to scrutinize the recent climate warming being in general regarded as man-made; as summary I have stated: ”As anthropogenic CO2 emissions do not dominate the CO2 content in atmosphere, and as even total content of CO2 in atmosphere does not dominate the climate temperature, the influence of CO2 from fossile fuels – and even from other anthropogenic CO2 sources – is so minimal that it cannot be distinguished from zero.” – Lauri

The link to your previous post asserts manmade CO2 has only increased total CO2 concentration by 4% with no evidence this is remotely true.

“Recently the CO2 content in atmosphere has increased about 2.2 ppm a year. As the total amount of CO2 emissions to atmosphere has then contained only about 4 % CO2 from fossile fuels, in this yearly increase of 2.2 ppm in the atmospheric CO2 content there has been only about 0.088 % CO2 from fossile fuels, at the most” – Lauri

But lets check the math anyway as a smell test. Preindustrial content was about 280 ppm CO2. Today its about 400 ppm. The delta of that is 120 ppm. If only 4% was due to fossil fuel burning, then only 5 ppm of the increase would be attributed to man. That in no way jives with the amount of CO2 estimated to have been created by the combustion of fossil fuels over the last century… by a long shot. Heck, the amount of CO2 generated from burning fuel is so large (400 Billion tonnes), the amount we find in the atmosphere is way too low and the only explanation we have of where it is going is to absorption into the oceans. So if only 5 ppm increase in the 120 ppm measured is from man made activities, what natural phenomenon has caused the additional 115 ppm increase? Don’t you think it would be big news if we were able to point to the natural source creating that excess? Don’t you think that would be noticeable? Measurable? Documented scientifically? You provide no evidence for that and on the contrary you greatly underestimate the amount of CO2 generated from 100 years of burning fossil fuels.

Lauri, IMO, if you want to join the discussion on CO2, climate and policy in any meaningful way, the climate sensitivity of CO2 indistinguishable from zero assertion isn’t going to be your ally. Judy and Lindzen, who you appear to respect, do not use this line of argumentation. Ask yourself why.
This is not where the scientific battle is being fought.

The share of CO2 from fossile fuels in the recent total increase of CO2 content in atmosphere is minimal:
”As we well know CO2 content in atmosphere is controlled by striving for dynamic balance between all CO2 emissions from sources to atmosphere and all CO2 absorptions from atmosphere to other parts of environments. If the emissions are more than absorptions, the CO2 content in atmosphere is increasing, but if they are less, the CO2 content in atmosphere is decreasing.
Recently the CO2 content in atmosphere has increased about 2.2 ppm a year. As the total amount of CO2 emissions to atmosphere has then contained only about 4 % CO2 from fossile fuels, in this yearly increase of 2.2 ppm in the atmospheric CO2 content there has been only about 0.088 % CO2 from fossile fuels, at the most”; https://judithcurry.com/2017/03/20/discussion-thread-improving-the-interface-between-climate-science-and-policy/#comment-842716 .”

Lauri, like I said, you offer no evidence the human part of CO2 increase is 4% of the total. Linking to a previous assertion on a different thread is not evidence. Just because you assert something multiple times does not turn the assertion into evidence. Like Cripwell, you will continue to make this baseless assertion over and over again with absolute certainty yet use the uncertainty argument, like asserting the climate is too complex to understand, as a reason the prevailing theory is incorrect. I hope you see the irony in juxtaposition of those two ideas. IMO, you have not scrutinized the available information in a balanced way and come to find what the prevailing wisdom is…. a wisdom Currry and Lindzen understand.

But Dr Curry at least has often questioned that a 1deg C or so global temperature increase last century says much about global warming. Previous temperature increases a decade or two long are so similar both before and after substantial relative increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is a mismatch of delta Ts and delta CO2s that has to be explained.
Explanation requires attribution of heating and cooling episodes to either anthronor natural causes. This attribution has never been made scientifically.
So one deduction leads to another and the whole global warming proposition becomes more and more questionable. As readers here know only too well.
Geoff

Geoff, Judy’s questions about how much warming is attributable to man made activities are based on an acceptance of the GHE theory. Accepting that theory acknowledges a warming will occur with increased CO2 concentration. A warming has occurred. There is evidence. Lauri, on the other hand, asserts there is no evidence CO2 is a part of it and besides the climate is too complex to understand. Somehow she knows with high certainty that any warming that has occurred is not from elevated CO2 levels in a system that is too complex to understand. More specifically that climate sensitivity to CO2 is indistinguishable from zero. If you accept the GHE theory, the climate sensitivity to increased CO2 cannot be zero. Her use of uncertainty is highly biased IMO.

We don’t know how much, that is the question to be asking. Zero cannot be one of the answers. Judy and Lindzen agree with this. I have no problem questioning attribution and arguing where in the likely range CS falls. Zero is not in that range. Cripwell all over again.

The total sunk per year comes from the background level 400 some, plus what we emit, plus the seasonal rise, minus the seasonal loss. I suggest most of it comes from the background level. If we emit 4 ppm per year of the 400 ppm background level, about 1% of what we emit is sunk each year. The part of what we emit that is not sunk each year, may be sunk in future years.

John, sensitivity is a confused concept. The confusion is between an “all else being equal and nothing else happening” abstraction and a “this is what will happen” prediction. As an abstraction, increasing CO2 must cause warming, but in the real world it need do no such thing. The scientific debate over sensitivity is really just a debate over the abstraction, but it is often incorrectly taken to be a debate over a prediction.

David, I agree CS is an abstract concept…. Like many scientific concepts. For example, all of quantum mechanics descriptions are abstract concepts. Yet we make use of the abstract concepts to understand. Since CS is an emergent property that varies with model parameterization, PDFs are generated showing likely ranges…. Just like descriptions of electron density in atomic orbitals. But CS can also be estimated from empirical data, like what Curry and Lewis do. So the empirical method helps to guide theoretical understanding. It’s should be obvious that understanding what may happen in the future is important in understanding risk and how to possibly prepare. Leaders are responsible for understanding and mitigating risks, whether small, large or uncertain, otherwise it’s just irresponsibility. You have to use the tools and concepts available to you. CS fits that need regardless of its current precision. It will take more data to reveal where CS stands.

Javier presents interesting argument. He explains that CO2 played little if any part in the transitions into and out of the glacial and interglacial periods. And argues CO2 is making only a minor contribution to the current warm period.

“Around three quarters of the nation’s households and businesses are now facing substantial rises in their power bills from next month, after Origin Energy announced price hikes for electricity and gas.

Rounding out price increases from the big three generators and retailers, Origin Energy — the biggest of the trio — confirmed the pressure on wholesale prices from a historic lack of investment in new baseload generation capacity.

Business and homes in Queensland, NSW and South Australia are all set to pay more.

New South Wales, which came close to blackouts amid soaring temperatures in February, faces the steepest percentage increases for electricity, with business bills set to rise 18 per cent or $748 a year while households will pay an extra $282, up 16.1 per cent.

But South Australians, who faced blackouts from September and who already have the most expensive power, will face the biggest dollar increases. Businesses are set to pay $920 or 15.3 per cent more, while households will pay $313 or 15.9 per cent more.

Origin’s rises for electricity are among the lowest of the big three retailers, with AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia revealing hikes of nearly 20 per cent in recent days.

It means an estimated 75 per cent of customers across the eastern states — including South Australia — will pay substantially more for electricity this year.”

As informed people know and as I and others have explained here many times, the additional grid costs to support intermittent renewables are huge as are the additional costs transferred to the dispatchable generators to support intermittent renewables.

“Around three quarters of the nation’s households and businesses are now facing substantial rises in their power bills from next month, after Origin Energy announced price hikes for electricity and gas.

Rounding out price increases from the big three generators and retailers, Origin Energy — the biggest of the trio — confirmed the pressure on wholesale prices from a historic lack of investment in new baseload generation capacity.

Business and homes in Queensland, NSW and South Australia are all set to pay more.

New South Wales, which came close to blackouts amid soaring temperatures in February, faces the steepest percentage increases for electricity, with business bills set to rise 18 per cent or $748 a year while households will pay an extra $282, up 16.1 per cent.

But South Australians, who faced blackouts from September and who already have the most expensive power, will face the biggest dollar increases. Businesses are set to pay $920 or 15.3 per cent more, while households will pay $313 or 15.9 per cent more.

Origin’s rises for electricity are among the lowest of the big three retailers, with AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia revealing hikes of nearly 20 per cent in recent days.

It means an estimated 75 per cent of customers across the eastern states — including South Australia — will pay substantially more for electricity this year.”

As informed people know and as I and others have explained here many times, the additional grid costs to support intermittent renewables are huge as are the additional costs transferred to the dispatchable generators to support intermittent renewables.

“So much so that the futures price for wholesale power has increased from $54 per megawatt hour in December to more than $140 per megawatt hour now.” – on the announcement of the retirement of an ancient power station.

Nothing to do with renewables per se – arm waving about enormous costs notwithstanding. And yes – this effects the entire NEM. The NEM is a single electricity market in eastern Australia. Grid costs are all about meeting peak demand – not renewables so much. Indeed – rooftop solar offsets peak summer demand in more northern climes.

Some 84% of electricity is generated with coal and gas – there is about 8% wind and solar and the rest is Snowy Mountains hydro power. Yes we have snow – I’ve tried it and I don’t think it’s for me.

The intention is to create more hydro generation including more pumped hydro using excess wind and solar generation – again in the Snowy Mountains. The graph comes from the very latest state of the energy market report.

The cost of wind and solar are about 0.003% of the Australian economy – neither here not there in other words. It adds about 10% to my power bill – and there is an energy rebate to cover the cost for the poorest. As an experiment – it is not all that onerous an expenditure.

I find Lang to be very short on facts and balanced analysis and very long on the rhetoric of his particular bias. He absurdly overstates the case against renewables in Australia for such an ‘expert’ in the field.

There are no options at $40/MW. HELE technology is the cheapest at more than twice that – and almost as low carbon. The old coal plants are much cheaper – but they can’t last forever and the fleet is dying out like the dinosaurs. The announcement of the Hazelwood closure caused an increase in wholesale prices from $40 to $140 per MW. The swings and roundabouts of markets? The Finkel review recommended – inter alia – to mandate a 3 year closure notice requirement.

The fleet will be replaced – as I said elsewhere – with HELE coal plants and more Snowy Mountain hydro – including pumped hydro. Until something better comes along.

As for backup – very little is needed at such low penetrations – and can be served by gas and hydro peaking units selling into higher spot prices. Solar moreover supplies power well into the peak daily summer demand period. The generation is of course local reducing transmission losses. Higher penetrations are more difficult – but we are not there yet and sounding the alarms in such strident, politicised and misguided terms – you and your friends – just sounds silly.

If the wasted energy – the area above the demand curve enclosed by the 3kW curve – can be used to conserve water resources in the Snowy Mountains then that becomes yet another supply for peak demand. Which after all – happens in the hottest summers.

Look at it this way – the cost to me of wind and solar is about $50/qtr. I’m not happy about it – but it is already a fact. The flawed gas market, grid ripoff and – more recently – wholesale price profiteering much more. You and Peter both need to get a grip on the relativities.

Ellision continually shows he has no expertise and little understanding of the electricity system, the issues or the causes. People who do understand, such as Planning Engineer, have tried to explain but he refuses to learn and resorts to his default behaviour of misrepresentation, dishonesty, snarks, insults, snarks, rude, belligerent responses directed at someone. He seems incapable of carrying on a courteous respectful, rational discussion. Hardly a comment passes without an obnoxious remark directed at some one.

His comments are a distraction and diversion. Here’s an example:

Some 84% of electricity is generated with coal and gas – there is about 8% wind and solar and the rest is Snowy Mountains hydro power. Yes we have snow – I’ve tried it and I don’t think it’s for me.

It’s irrelevant to the cause of why electricity costs in the developed world are skyrocketing when they should be falling in real terms. if not for the damage the ignorant activists pushing their beliefs are causing.

RIEllison,
Look at renewables this way.
They require fossil fuel and hydro backup here in AUST with no nuclear.
Compare your power bill with how it could have been, mainly cheap coal and oil/gas, versus that simple system with renewables preferred and back up as before.
I think you will find the no renewables option coming in at something like $ 40 a unit on that Finkel graph already shown, versus somewhere north of $100 for the option that goes for the dominance of policy towards renewables.
I ask why I have to accept a 250% increase on my electricity bill because a mob of dreamers and schemers have set up a scheme involving renewables and globalisation, a concept that my friends and I all detest.
All pain no gain.
Geoff

Peter has told everyone a million times that wind and solar cannot provide appreciable amounts of power and are ginormously expensive. The reality is that they can provide small amounts (relatively) of energy to systems without noticable disruption and at LCOE that are competitive in the case of onshore wind at least. Solar will be cost competitive. And prices here can only continue to fall. That cannot be true for fossil fuels with rapidly growing energy demand globally.

It the long term – it pays to innovate on technology. There seems to be an attitude around here that we should close the door on energy innovation.

Wind and solar cannot provide any economic power to the grid. If they could they wouldn’t need huge subsidies. Get a clue. Clearly you never gained any engineering judgement in your career at whatever you did.

The subsidies in Australia are less than $5 billion per year. There are things I would rather do with the money – but there it is. It is some 0.003% of the Australian economy. Paid for by consumers. Regrettable but not huge in the scheme of things.

Peter’s obsessional behaviour and habitual disparagement seems fairly obvious. I am a trained hydrologist and environmental scientist as he is aware of. Engineering judgement refers to specialist knowledge gained with experience and used to solve problems. It doesn’t translate into a broader context – quite obviously with Peter. But it is quite an unprofessional attack on my professional integrity that I hold in contempt. It is a lack of professional integrity on Peter’s part.

Environmental Science as I was taught it involves multi-disciplinary approached to solving complex societal problems. It involves a very broad education over decades. Including law, economics and policy as well as diverse science and technology – and of course a depth of understanding in hydrology.

Of course – the free press is not free at all but requires a subscription. I am not subscribing to the Daily Telegraph.

And the 2012 government release doesn’t address the latest round of increases – where the discussion started. Let’s try the Australian Financial Review from June 8 2017.

“Prices surged as soon as Engie in October foreshadowed the closure of the large Hazelwood plant in the Latrobe Valley in March, and again in February when electricity use peaked during heatwave temperatures.

While wholesale prices softened this week after the Queensland government ordered the restart of the Swanbank E gas generator, retailers are struggling with much higher wholesale costs than a year ago. Many business customers have already felt the impact, with some industrial customers saying their energy costs have doubled in two years.”

You don’t need a subscription to read the article I linked. “Free press” is an expression not a literal string. Google it.

It appears government regulations disfavoring coal and uncertainty in carbon price going forward, along with rewards and subsidies for renewable energy, has played a very large role in poisoning the well in traditional economical power generation via coal.

The latest insult, the shutdown of a 60-year old plant, had nothing to do with the plant but rather everything to do 1200 pages of health and safety regulation violations. GOVERNMENT regulations that didn’t exist in previous decades. The Australian government clearly drove that coal plant out of business with excessive regulations.

The link goes straight to a subscription page – to the Daily Friggin’ Telegraph. It may be my because of my location actually in Australia. But describing the Daily Telegraph as free rather than tabloid or yellow press is actually quite funny. You will find that the Australian Financial Review I linked to on the same subject is considerably more reputable. And – as an aside – – Springer seems a bit slow on the uptake of the bad pun on free press.

The Hazelwood plant used cheap local brown coal. There are a couple of other generators in the Latrobe Valley – Yallourn W, Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B – that are still working and making windfall profits from high wholesale prices.

Hazelwood is 60 years old and doesn’t need fabricated narratives and conspiracy theories to explain it’s closure. The state of the boilers saw to that.

It obviously something that Springer knows a hell of a lot about. If you are interested in real facts – discount this utter nonsense. If not – not my problem.

Speaking of free press a subscriber paywall blocks my access to Australian Financial Times article you linked.

You’re an apologist for environmental whack jobs. There’s certainly no love lost with me for Peter Lang who’s an apologist for nuclear energy whack jobs but in this isolated case of soaring energy costs down under he appears to have hit the nail squarely on the head.

I might know a lot about this because US electric rates have not risen, I follow the industry here in the US, and I can see what happened. AU government has taken new age earth mamma thinking to a whole new level. Sanity still prevails in the US as can be seen by us bailing out of the Paris Accord, cancelling TPP, building out shale oil and tar sand infrastructure, reopening coal mines, etc.

We are opening coal mines, about to become the world’s biggest natural gas exporter, planning new hydro, building new supercritical coal plants, there is a low penetration of wind solar balanced by hydro, subsidies are some .

The reason for an increase in wholesale prices this year is pure market driven.

Good luck fixing the market problem without understanding how the gov’t effects it. We don’t have rising electricity costs in the US in general so have nothing to fix. We don’t have Australia’s climate of uncertainty with regard to carbon tax and thing of that nature. Investors in power infrastructure get skittish when the regulatory environment is uncertain.

The original problem after 2005 was $54B in cost-plus infrastructure contracts driven by state governments – some of which were notably corrupt. We have jailed a few politicians and reined in grid contracts.

The secondary problem was tight gas markets driven by ambitious exports and supply failing to keep up. We have regulated for more secure domestic supplies and openewd up exploration and development.

More recently was the shut down of 1600MW of coal generation in Victoria. There is sufficient reserve capacity in the system to cope – yet market prices spiked 3-fold.

The current argument is that putting in place an ’emissions intensity scheme’ would create market certainly by squeezing out coal over the next decade and a bit. This discussion is under way – no thanks to Springer. In the meantime there is funding for hydro and HELE in northern Queensland.

RIE,
In Melbourne, the last 10 years of repetitive domestic use has seen our electricity supply cost to increase at a compound, steady 11% per annum.
This is before the large increase of more than that signalled post-Hazlewood.
In the early years, after 2006, the fob off was about “gold plating transmission systems” aka preparation of the many extra km of HV lines in advance of intermittent renewables. The windmill web. These had fools gold plating, as shown by how easily towers were blown down in South Aust with moderately heavy wind.
You do not have to dig too far to uncover prior official cover-ups, cost overruns, Union blackmail raising construction costs and culpable engineering mistakes that have allowed the ingress of uneconomic proposals like renewable energy in general, carbon capture and storage and batteries yet to be invented.
Money has been spent cover up real costs added to household bills while a large and mostly redundant bureaucracy has been employed to do little more than spin away the facts of efficient, non- intermittent generation, to be replaced by 10 impossible dreams before breakfast.
Disbelief? Simply hold an official Inquiry into the Govt sanctioned theft in the cause of smart meters.
If you believe the whole Finkel report – or its graph above – you are simply displaying either gullibility or a disinclination to address the obvious.
We have been ripped off for a decade in a way that would have led to criminal prosecution in the years before my retirement. I know this because I was a participant in energy systems and knew them reasonably well.
Geoff

The wholesale prices increased from the time of the Hazelwood announcement. Hazelwood was 60 years old and condemned for safety reasons.

As for the grid overspend. From the 2012 Senate inquiry into power prices.

“There are many reasons for recent large increases in electricity prices, including the replacement of out-dated infrastructure and increased peak demand. However, in the committee’s view, the most significant of these is inefficient over-investment in network infrastructure—the poles and wires.”

There is a bit of dirty washing in there.

“A roll call of recent NSW energy ministers reads like an ICAC subpoena list. In 2006 and 2007, as the states were writing the rules for the new regulator to enforce, NSW had two energy ministers: first the corrupt Joe Tripodi, then the corrupt Ian Macdonald. Macdonald disgraced himself in 2009 when, as the NSW networks were preparing to spend billions on new poles and wires, he accepted a night with a prostitute in return for setting up dinners between state energy executives and the infamous property developers Ron Medich and Lucky Gattellari. (Gattellari was later jailed for his part in the murder of Sydney standover man Michael McGurk.) In 2011, when the Coalition swept Labor from power, the new premier Barry O’Farrell awarded the energy portfolio to Chris Hartcher, who stayed in the job until ICAC came knocking in December last year.

The is a lot of wild conspiracy rhetoric in Geoff’s comment. Just one thing -the graph showing wind, solar and hydro penetration is correct and the Chief Scientist Finkel’s electricity review – to borrow a phrase – is mostly harmless.

They want to blame renewables for every price rise – but it is far from the reality.

The coal plants including Hazelwood are not being closed for safety reasons. They are being closed because they are being made uneconomic by government interventions: Renewable Energy Target, state government’s additional targets of 50% renewables, Paris Agreement commitments, and others.

Again – short on facts. Why do you insist on misleading these good people?

After 60 years of operation –
Hazelwood electricity was far cheaper to produce than any possible alternative. There is – however – a 1200 page health and safety report. The plant just wasn’t worth the cost of repairs.

If you are going to replace it = HELE in the Galilee Basin or more Snowy hydro is a better idea. Or both.

The Commonwealth 20% renewables target by 2020 is not going to be renewed by either party. It is history – and no point in whining about spilled milk. As far as I can make out it is nameplate capacity and not actual generation. The state targets are largely aspirational.

At the real level of wind and solar penetration – balanced by cheap hydro – the effect is marginal.

It should be fairly clear that I don’t have a high opinion of Peter’s capacity for balanced analysis. Just do everyone a favour Peter – and try to cut back on the calumny in response.

If you want real information on electricity in Australia – go to the sources and not the climate warrior rhetoric.

“You haven’t a clue what your talking about. We can’t get more energy out of Snowy Hydro. It’s limited by average rainfall. Average capacity factor is about 15%.” Peter Lang – along with a couple of paragraphs of vituperative rant.

“From that perspective, the Government proposal to expand the Snowy Hydro scheme is welcome. However, hydro projects have long lead times so other solutions are needed urgently. Another issue is the use of the pumped-hydro technology. Given that the water supply is limited, the proposed scheme will only provide peak power capacity but the net energy contribution will be limited.”

It relates to an announcement last month of a project to develop additional Snowy Mountain hydro capacity. It would power from the Snowy Mountains scheme. The other project in the planning stage is for HELE coal in northern Queensland.

It relates to an announcement last month of a project to develop additional Snowy Mountain hydro capacity.

Again you show you haven’t a clue. It’s more capacity (i.e. more power), not more energy. Don’t you have any understanding of the most basic concepts.

BTW, the project is largely based on my conceptual study in 2009, but uses Talbingo as the lower reservoir instead of Blowering and needs three tunnels to do the job of one, so 1/3 the capacity for same cost as my conceptual study (which by the way was not viable).

In Britain very little of our energy could possibly be produced by hydro schemes but they do have a downside. Enlarging the snowy mountains scheme by 50% in what is a relatively small area in a relatively dry country sounds as if there could be lots of un intended consequences. Are you aware of any?

No new dams are planned. It’s proposed to connect two existing reservoirs, over 20 km apart with pumped hydro. It’s almost certainly not viable and wont happen. It’s a stunt to get the PM out of a popularity bind. Gullible people readily fall for it, like the fall for the nonsense about renewables..

There have been concerns about environmental flows for decades. My first project out of university was the design of a state of the art sewerage system for Jindabyne. A big leap in environmentally sensitive design featuring advanced electronic controls. I have since gone on to win awards for water sensitive design by integrating water supply, sewerage and stormwater in highly efficient – and environmentally friendly – urban systems. These days I write more poetry – which was always my first love.

The Jindabyne project entailed a pipeline over the Jindabyne Dam – one of the dams in the scheme – spillway. At the base of the spillway the waterway was far from a natural system – with evident high flows and riparian damage from dam releases – and more frequently greatly reduced baseflows in the iconic Snowy River.

“He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko’s side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse’s hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen.”

I have been involved with dams over the years with ecological modelling of lungfish mortality (being shredded on spillways during floods), designing and building dams and retention basins on urban and industrial sites and mines, designing fish friendly water intakes, environmental analysis and hydrological modelling. I have observed that things have improved considerably over my career.

It terms of ecological design dams are considered a serial discontinuity. Simply – streams increase in biological richness from upstream to downstream reaches. A discontinuity causes a reduction in biological richness below the point of disruption – a reduction in the number of species. Even very small dams can disrupt breeding cycles by preventing fish passage – and there are other problems that can emerge with water temperature and flows.

It is very early days for the expanded Snowy Mountains scheme. “The four-year project would massively increase the amount of renewable energy storage capacity in Australia through pumped hydro technology, which involves using cheap electricity to pump water uphill so it can be later released downhill through turbines, creating electricity when demand is high.

It is essentially a pumped storage proposal that would use energy from our 8% renewables that is otherwise unused to supply peak demand. In Australia that is summer afternoons and early evening. The capacity factor for Snowy hydro is about 9% I think I have read somewhere. Generally hydro capacity factors are cited as around 30%. Used for peak demand to maximise revenue.

So perhaps the opportunity for some relatively cheap storage of wind and solar energy with little additional environmental impact.

Putting all the eggs in one basket is not wise. There is as well a proposal for HELE coal generation in northern Queensland.

Lang appears to be correct. US energy costs remain quite stable because the regulatory environment is stable. Obama promised to completely wreck that but an opposed majority in congress squashed the worst of his efforts, delayed them all, and then the voters spoke. Now we’re alone in the world having pulled out of Paris Accord. And our electricity prices are not rising.

Peter has been very busy leaping to unwarranted assumptions. First it was that there was not enough – then he finds out that it was a pumped storage proposal and unilaterally declares it unfeasible.

There is preliminary engineering and costing work and there is a feasibility study underway. In engineering anything can be done – whether it should be is another question. I’m not prepared to preempt the process.

Those of us living in California will not benefit from general American energy sanity. We have very aggressive decarbonization targets set in law and instead of doing the sensible thing–quietly conceding that they are not doable without significant dislocation–the pols are scrounging around for all sorts of schemes.

There is an interesting debate going on in muffled terms between the green “realists” who want to put price collars on the permit market and the Environmental Defense Fund and other green “ultras” who wait with bated breath for CA energy prices to get so high that the citizens’ lifestyle is affected drastically.

“A whopping $7.4 trillion will be spent globally on new green energy facilities in the coming decades, but another $5.3 trillion is needed to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord, according to a new report.

Of course, a far more rational approach would be to stop all funding for climate policies, remove impediments to relatively free markets (except to ensure fair competition, reliability and security), and gain the benefits of whatever warming we can get before the next abrupt cooling.

This is laughable. The emerging economies are building coal fired power plants like crazy. They are not about to abandon them for intermittent renewables. Last I looked China’s coal fired capacity alone was on track to exceed the US’s entire capacity. Paris is just a political stunt.

There are narratives – from both sides – based on biased articles on a report that isn’t freely available. Mind you – I usually find Bloomberg hilariously optimistic on wind and solar. So I am not hopeful that the report has anything useful to say.

RIE, yes, the EIA present a more coal-happy narrative that still has it as the dominant CO2-emitter in 2040 leading to CO2 concentrations of 650-700 ppm by 2100 if their emission growth of 1% per year is extrapolated beyond 2040. Conversely, if the Bloomberg rate of reduction in 2040 is projected to 2100 we end up with less than 500 ppm in 2100. The difference is that EIA downplay the growth of renewables to replace coal in the coming decades. The differences between Bloomberg and EIA show how much effect the expansion of renewables can have.

I think some don’t account for costs of coal rising and advances in storage and renewable technologies making their costs decrease. These are already trends that should not be dismissed. Energy prices will be coming down while coal prices are still going up. This has predictable consequences for coal, and your excitement about the future of coal will diminish.

The reality is that coal prices have returned to pre-CFC levels – making coal more lucrative. And HELE coal plants are considerably cheaper than alternatives – in Asia – as of now.

HELE plants are up to 40-45% more efficient than subcritical plants – so reductions in emissions are possible in addition to providing low cost energy. Nor are these price differentials expected to change over the next couple of decades.

I am technology neutral. While the LCOE of wind and solar will continue to decline – it hasn’t yet to sufficiently to make it cost competitive and storage is required beyond some minimal penetration to make it a reliable supply. The economics simply isn’t there as yet – but even better technology will emerge over the next few decades. It may include wind and solar.

The development principle is that the source of energy should be determined purely on economics. And efficiency is the key to both emissions restraint and productivity growth. This is the real Paris trajectory.

As for the unavailable Bloomberg report with it’s rosy prognoses reported on by enthusiats elsewhere – I would certainly be surprised if LCOE fell that quickly and that far. But then LCOE is still not the critical factor for high penetration of wind and solar. You can cope with low penetration almost without blinking – but high penetration requires backup.

Jimmy, Bloomberg and the Huffington Post may babble on all they like about the future economics of wind, solar and storage – but it is not there and the world needs energy now. They can get back to me once the actual economics catches up with the prophecies.

As the ACE says – there are more than a 1000 HELE plants being planned and built in Asia as the energy source of choice. This is the hard edged pragmatic reality.

I looked up HELE because I didn’t know what you were talking about, but it seems to be the new name for clean coal touted by that industry. They may have realized that “clean coal” is an oxymoron in today’s world where people know better. I linked an article on China who want to move away from coal and towards renewables. Other Asian countries will surely follow rather than import their coal. Yes, renewables aren’t there yet, because they need storage for penetration, but whether the price cross-over is 2020 or 2030, they are going to take over in any realistic scenario. Your EIA scenario has fossil fuels, mostly coal growing 1% per year. Bloomberg has net fossil fuel reductions by then more in line with Paris.

Jim D: see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
The black line is not about to reverse, because these are new power plants. Coal fired capacity is approaching 1000 GW which is roughly equal to total US capacity (which includes a lot of very old iron). Green scenarios are just dreams.

Intermittents plus storage may be cheaper than high efficiency, low emission coal one day – it needs some big cost reductions. Until then – developing economies will implement lower cost energy. That’s the reality of Paris.

There are some reports that China already passed peak coal in 2014 and others that say this will soon happen due to their efforts at renewables. This is worth tracking and hopefully they will succeed in their plan.

According to the New York Times, China and India “have greatly accelerated their investments in cost-effective renewable energy sources—and reduced their reliance on fossil fuels,” but “it’s America—Donald Trump’s America—that now looks like the laggard.”[i]

Jim D: “There are some reports that China already passed peak coal in 2014 and others that say this will soon happen due to their efforts at renewables.”

There are several problems with coal in China that the country is trying to address. I suspect CO2 emissions is last on the list.

China has thousands of small, inefficient, loss-making and dangerous mines with appalling low recovery rates. Furthermore, they have serious rail and road transport congestion problems in particular regions exacerbated by bulk transport of coal. And they have horrendous air quality problems in some of their cities, with local coal-fired power stations making a large contribution to the pollution.

China is addressing the inefficiencies that arose during the coal boom of recent decades, and is trying to reduce the worst levels of urban air pollution that their citizens are becoming more and more vocal about. This has nothing to do with a desire to reduce CO2 emissions.

At the same time, China has been putting the brakes on wind and solar because it doesn’t have a sufficiently robust grid to deal with large quantities. For example, China has twice the wind generating capacity of the US, but it only contributes about the same amount of electricity. Of course this may change in the future, and there are planned investments in grid capacity. However, China has a history is missing some targets by a mile, while exceeding others by a similar amount. That makes predicting the future very difficult.

Anyone who believes that China is motivated by anything other than purely pragmatic considerations of self-interest knows nothing about China. They went through their Jim D-style dewy-eyed idealism during the Cultural Revolution, paid the inevitable high price, and so will not be repeating that folly any time soon.

“A new row threatens to derail the case for a clean energy target as the resources industry warns against claims of lower household electricity bills from the controversial reform, escalating a fight over demands for federal intervention to support coal power.

The new analysis challenges the key promise of lower bills under the sweeping overhaul of the $11.7 billion sector, ringing the alarm on “inconsistent” and “selective” results in the plan for a new scheme to favour renewable power.
…
The findings by leading economist Brian Fisher, a former head of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, warn that the modelling done for the government “does not seem plausible” and tends to underestimate the cost of renewable power.
…
“Key assumptions tend to increase the costs of investing in coal generation and lower the cost of renewable generation,” Dr Fisher says in the analysis for the Minerals Council of Australia.

“There is nothing new in the politicisation of climate policy or the overselling of a political agreement. But the deeper problem is that a lot of puffery about the state of renewable energy has accompanied the Paris hype.

This, too, is not new. “A largely or wholly solar economy can be constructed in the US with straightforward soft technologies that are now demonstrated and now economic or nearly economic,” environmentalist Amory Lovins declared in 1976. In 1984, the Worldwatch Institute assured us that wind subsidies “will not be needed within a few years”.

In fact, the world will spend $125 billion on wind and solar subsidies alone this year. Despite four decades of financial support, the International Energy Agency reports that wind provides just 0.5 per cent of today’s energy needs, and solar photovoltaic a minuscule 0.1 per cent.

More than $3 trillion will be spent subsidising these over the next 25 years. Even by 2040, and assuming that all of the Paris agreement’s promises are fulfilled, the IEA expects wind and solar to provide, respectively, just 1.9 per cent and 1 per cent of global energy. This is not what an economy in the midst of an “inevitable” shift away from fossil fuels looks like.

Solar and wind energy depend on considerable subsidies because in most contexts, they remain more expensive than fossil fuels. When Britain cut solar power subsidies, installations plummeted. Spain was once paying almost 1 per cent of its GDP in renewable subsidies, more than it spent on higher education. When it cut back, new wind energy production collapsed.

Green energy investors and politicians lead the public-relations advance, assisted by an often credulous media that likes to tell green-technology “success” stories. But if green energy was already competitive or near-competitive with fossil fuels, the Paris agreement would be unnecessary. The entire world would be dumping fossil fuels for the cheaper, better option.”

I have a couple of degrees – including one in environmental science – and I’m a bit confused on climate change. Not the science so much – I am inclined to the idea that the science consensus is that prediction using coupled, nonlinear, chaotic climate models is impossible. I can quote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to that effect. That two degrees centigrade can be predicted – or that the precise impact of carbon mitigation can be known beforehand – seem to be then two of the six impossible things believed before breakfast by Bjørn Lomborg. But carbon dioxide emission reduction is simply a matter of risk management in coupled, chaotic, nonlinear Earth systems.

According to Environment Australia our cumulative mitigation burden to 2030 is a little over 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2-eq). Again according to Environment Australia – we are on track to meet this with almost 400 tonnes from the Emission Reduction Fund (189 MtCO2-eq mitigation has been contracted for thus far), a little less than 200 MtCO2-eq from energy efficiency, some 100 MtCO2-eq from ozone and HFC reductions and approximately 200 MtCO2-eq from technology improvement across sectors. All this about and some and approximately – by the way – is an engineering habit tracing back to slide rules. We have also – apparently – in hand a 121 MtCO2-eq carryover from Kyoto.

None of this is much of a problem – better land management and biodiversity conservation, higher efficiency, technology development. Nor is wind and solar at relatively low penetration.

We can build some more high efficiency, low emission (HELE) coal plants – which are up to 45% more efficient than the aging brown or black subcritical coal fleet. As well as the Snowy Mountains pumped hydro storage promised – to balance our 8% effective wind and solar supply. While at the same time making some more inroads into electricity emissions (just 30% of the total) to 2030. Indeed – it seems we may feasibly stay the course with a multi-sector direct action approach – and make our Paris target to 2030 when wind and solar plus storage – or nuclear – may actually be cheaper than coal.

BNEF:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Liebreich
“This acquisition (of BNEF) is the next step in Bloomberg’s initiative to develop and promote the carbon and clean energy markets.”[19]
I don’t think Bloomberg is being too objective here.

“The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access the Bloomberg Professional service through which users can monitor and analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform.[1]”

Above we have wind and solar at 1%. Now is 1% and in 23 years we need to get that to 34%. But demand will grow, so let me move that to 50% which is not 50% but 50 times current to date.

I want to use the rule of 72s. I want to take now at 1% and have that double every 5 years. That should get us to our 50. So we need to add 14% to wind and solar each year.

In the first 5 years, we have to equal everything we’ve done to date.
In the next 5 years we need to double that.
We need to keep doubling placed in service every 5 years until we get to about year 23.
This assumes nothing is taken out of service.

You have a heck of a lot more than Lomborg’s 1%. Few countries are that low. At least 8 are over 10%, and other major emitters are at 5-10% wind and solar. Can someone ask Lomborg for his 1% calculation because it defies the facts. be skeptical of him. He hides the pea.

Yes, storage is the key. Countries like Denmark are already in the 40% range from wind alone, and that is even without the storage being really available yet, but we can’t count on others having their resources.

Jim D: “Many of the more advanced countries are already well above 10% in electricity generation from renewables. Any numbers you see less than that are some kind of spin. Don’t fall for it.”

I took your advice not to fall for the spin!

From the table you linked: –

Total number of countries: 154
Number of countries with 0% renewables: 69 (45% of total)
Number of countries with 25% renewables: 1 (0.6% total)

So number of countries with 10% or greater renewables = 9 (6% of total)

What is “well above 10%”? What is “many” countries?

Is it 15% or greater? If so, number of countries = 6 (4% of total). Is 6 “many”?

Maybe “well above” is 20% or more? If so, the number is 3 (2% of total). Is 3 “many” countries?

NB: MY definition of renewables is WIND or SOLAR.

Hydro is not ‘renewable’ unless it is pumped-storage from wind and/or solar. There is only one such scheme I know about in the world, which is tiny and a complete failure by any objective standard (there may well be others). Furthermore, hydro cannot be considered renewable in any useful sense of the word because it is entirely dependent on having a particular geography. It is also not ‘renewable’ because as far as I know there are no schemes that have been built expressly as ‘renewable’ – hydro is merely a legacy form of generation that exists because of other more rational considerations (e.g. purely economic). I will concede that hydro is low carbon, but then so is nuclear, and nobody calls nuclear power ‘renewable’.

Following the IPCC, I don’t count biomass as renewable either. In IR5: “If bioenergy production is to generate a net reduction in emissions, it must do so by offsetting those emissions through increased net carbon uptake of biota and soils”. I am highly dubious that many schemes satisfy this requirement. In any event there is no consensus when it comes to the proper carbon accounting for the various forms of biomass. I think it highly likely that most would be more usefully sequestered in soil than sent up in smoke.

And I don’t count geothermal as renewable for similar reasons that I don’t count hydro – because it is simply not a practical option except in rare cases.

You are checking, so how do you think Lomborg gets his 1% numbers? I think it is already several times higher than that in most of the major emitting countries. Don’t you agree we should be skeptical of his claims? From where it is a 10% per year growth rate easily gets us past the 34% level by 2040 as the Bloomberg article realistically foresees. Bloomberg versus Lomborg. I go with Bloomberg.

You are spinning like a top, yimmy. Didn’t you look at the info in the link to wiki that you so boldly presented as proof of something? Probably would have been a good idea to read it, before you posted it.

Take out hydro, biomass and geothermal from renewables and you got squat left. Wind and solar are not going to get it done, yimmy. Unless we all move to Denmark. And Lomborg is your red herring. You analyze his data. Ask aporiac to help you.

You can find where Lomborg went wrong from here.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
He appears to have used the supply percentage as the demand percentage. The first pie chart shows renewables at 6% of world electricity generation in TWh/yr. The second shows it as 1.4% of the total energy supply expressed in Mt equivalent. Ironically Lomborg living in Denmark, which has 50% wind/solar and leads the world, can’t see as far as the end of his nose on where his own energy comes from.

I didn’t say I believed Limburger, yimmy. Red herring. You got squat. Wind and solar are not going to get it. Gotta go nuke, but your little lefty pals get all hysterical over the most modern power technology. Freaking little Luddites. Good luck, yimmy. Trump rules! You should take a vacation.

Your red herring is beginning to smell badly, yimmy. Who cares if it isn’t 1%? Wind and solar are not going to solve the alleged problem. Don’t you ever get tired of struggling here to no effect, yimmy? You are not going to save the planet with this foolishness.

That’s enough, yimmy. You presented a link to wiki that you thought was going to bolster your usual lame argument. It shows that wind and solar are a nit. Mr. aporiac did the math for you and you ignored it. You prefer to keep yammering about your red herring Lomborg. Now I will go away for a couple of months, because this is really boring with you taking up entirely too much space with your incessant arguing of the same redundant foolishness. Now tell us about Lomborg, again.

Jim D: “You are checking, so how do you think Lomborg gets his 1% numbers? ”

Lomborg references the IEA. There is a number in their latest (2016) ‘Key World Energy Statistics’ report that seems in the right ballpark. Under the metric ‘World total primary energy supply (TPES) by fuel’ they give ‘Other’ as 1.4%. The complete breakdown is: –

These numbers are all for 2014 – presumably the most recent year for which the IEA have comprehensive & reliable data. I don’t have a detailed breakdown of ‘Other’ (you have to pay if you want the source data), but in the report they provide the following note:

“Includes geothermal, solar, wind, heat, etc.”

It doesn’t seem beyond the realms of possibility that subtracting geothermal, heat, and etc leaves 1% for wind and solar.

You might be interested in the recently released BP Statistical Review (2017). BP give global ‘Primary energy: Consumption by fuel’ for renewables as 3.16% (2016), which I believe is confined to wind and solar. Note that BP give primary energy values in terms of barrels of oil equivalent so there will be some conversation factors built into their numbers.

BP’s values for primary energy are: –

Total World Consumption: 13,276.3 MtOE
Renewables: 419.6 MtOE

Also of interest, annual growth in renewables from 2015 to 2016 was 14.1%, a drop of 2% over the previous 10 year period (16.1%).

Who cares what your degrees are. No one who is competent in their field has to keep telling the audience how good they think they are. And trying to make out they are knowledgeable about hydro-electricity because they worked on installing a sewer pipe across an existing dam. What a joke!

I have a couple of degrees – including one in environmental science – and I’m a bit confused on climate change. Not the science so much… is what I said.

The Jindabyne project entailed a pipeline over the Jindabyne Dam – one of the dams in the scheme – spillway. At the base of the spillway the waterway was far from a natural system – with evident high flows and riparian damage from dam releases – and more frequently greatly reduced baseflows in the iconic Snowy River… is what I said.

So I actually was there and did ecological assessment downstream. They always gave me environmental assessments – as well as sufficient nuts and bolts design and construction. I like big toys.

I wrote, “Just out of interest, when you were playing with big toys what hourly rate were you charging for your services?”

It has occurred to me on re-reading 24 hours later that my comment could have been interpreted as containing a sexual innuendo. There was no such thought in my mind when I wrote it, any more than I perceived any sexual innuendo in your mention of “big toys”.

What was in my mind when I asked the question was to ascertain how highly your expertise is valued by others, compared to the value you put on it. That is not to say there is a single, final arbiter of value, but there is no harm in canvassing opinion.

Apart from being deliberately repeatedly obnoxious – Peter is clearly wrong as he so often is.

Snowy Mountain hydro nameplate capacity is 4GW – with a fairly low capacity factor. The proposal is for a pumped hydro energy storage system – using energy from the grid that would otherwise be shed in low demand periods. Using low cost energy to create another 2GW supply during high demand, high spot price periods. It is clearly real energy being stored.

There are power fundamentals that Peter always misses because of an obsession with the evils of wind and solar and the virtues of nuclear power. He insists that knowledgeable people disagree with me – seemingly regardless of what I say.

But I always have a context – the IEA, the AEMO, the ACE and many others – for which he accuses of cutting and pasting. And I always provides links to the full reports – in contrast to people who cut and paste popular press or blog articles. Notably above citing biased articles on a report that is not freely available.

The pedagogical ideal is to teach research skills rather than facts. I was lucky – and my advice to David is to emphasize research skills in schools. Otherwise he is just promulgating an alternative bias.

Robert I Ellison: Snowy Mountain hydro nameplate capacity is 4GW – with a fairly low capacity factor. The proposal is for a pumped hydro energy storage system – using energy from the grid that would otherwise be shed in low demand periods. Using low cost energy to create another 2GW supply during high demand, high spot price periods. It is clearly real energy being stored.

Will that low cost energy from productive capacity that would otherwise be shed be coming from solar and wind? Nighttime excess capacity to meet high daytime demand comes to mind when reading that quote, and we know that solar does not supply excess capacity at night. Wind?

We can build some more high efficiency, low emission (HELE) coal plants – which are up to 45% more efficient than the aging brown or black subcritical coal fleet. As well as the Snowy Mountains pumped hydro storage promised – to balance our 8% effective wind and solar supply. While at the same time making some more inroads into electricity emissions (just 30% of the total) to 2030. Indeed – it seems we may feasibly stay the course with a multi-sector direct action approach – and make our Paris target to 2030 when wind and solar plus storage – or nuclear – may actually be cheaper than coal.

Other than reducing CO2, is there an economic argument for subsidizing wind and solar in Australia? Reading through your interchange with Peter Lang, it seems to me that you make an economic case for more HELE coal fired power plants in Australia, unless the primary goal is the achievement of the Paris goals..

It depends on supply and demand – and at 5 minute intervals. Whenever the spot price is low – it can even be negative at times – at night when demand is less than baseload supply for instance. But solar and wind can also add to excess supply.

There is a 20% renewable target to 2020 – it is almost fully subscribed at about an 8% effective generation share for wind and solar. As opposed to nameplate capacity.

It costs about $3 billion a year – which I am not exactly happy with but not weeping and gnashing my teeth about. Look at it as mostly a fairly harmless experiment. Neither party is looking at extending it – for political reasons to do with avoiding further power pain and loss of votes.

Our Paris commitment is in the bag – as the US commitment was for different reasons. Is political posturing worth the effort? Not so much – but it is all ducks and drakes it seems.

It just acts as one way to balance supply and demand mismatches on the grid scale.

On a household level – you can see that demand doesn’t match the solar supply curve. Shifting some of that aggregate supply to early evenings through storage gives better coverage of the peak demand period in Australia of summer afternoons and evenings.

Robert I Ellison: Using low cost energy to create another 2GW supply during high demand, high spot price periods. It is clearly real energy being stored.

On a household level – you can see that demand doesn’t match the solar supply curve. Shifting some of that aggregate supply to early evenings through storage gives better coverage of the peak demand period in Australia of summer afternoons and evenings.

“But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. “Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century,” the book concludes.

Examining eight methods to reduce or stop global warming, Lomborg and his fellow economists recommend pouring money into researching and developing clean energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and nuclear power, and more work on climate engineering ideas such as “cloud whitening” to reflect the sun’s heat back into the outer atmosphere.

In a Guardian interview, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global healthcare.”

Peter obviously agrees with Lomberg – judged from the approving quotes above. To me the perils of putting these things in the hands of economists seems obvious.

At some stage a reasonably large scale deployment of wind and solar is critical to the ongoing experiment – and to gain operational experience in the real world. Teething problems may be experienced – but this is not evidence of the unserviceability of wind and solar.

We find words like massive and colossal thrown around about solar and wind subsidies – but they are of the same order as Lomberg’s mooted investment. We might call it investing in the development of a diversified energy system.

The global economy is worth about $100 trillion a year – and these sorts of subsidies are a relative trifle. It is only a minor part of the economic equation. We may for instance be rid of fossil fuel subsidies – as was called for by both Lomberg and the G20 – and generate trillions in benefits annually. It is not a zero sum game and the objective is to maximise returns given diverse constraints and opportunities.

Australia doesn’t rate on the subsidies map – but it is somewhere between France and the UK on the wind and solar side. Frankly I just can’t get too excited about it. But nor can I get too enthusiastic about the promises of low cost and reliable wind and solar energy.

Robert, you should be careful with saying “clearly wrong.” You stated that the capacity of the installation in question is 4GW. That is a measure of power rather than energy, as Peter pointed out. (I have no opinion or basis for deciding whether it also increases total GWh–energy–nor do I care. But perhaps this aspect of your spitting match can be laid to rest.)

I don’t have a spitting match – at least to match Peter’s level of insult.

But I do like to be precise. Power plants have a nameplate power rating. This is the rate at which they can generate energy. The flow through hydro has a capacity in the teens – less than wind or solar. The pumped hydro is essentially an endless loop. Water is pumped to a higher level in periods of low cost energy and stored as potential energy. To be converted back to Joules at the bottom at the power rating. This increases the instantaneous energy generation capacity by 50% in the proposal. One Watt for one second is one Joule. How much energy can be stored is a different – technical – question

Now we may descend into baby talk or we may take for granted such elemental relationships and talk about something relevant and interesting. But perhaps that is asking too much of this site.

“Again you show you haven’t a clue. It’s more capacity (i.e. more power), not more energy. Don’t you have any understanding of the most basic concepts.”

This is a ridiculous comment. The pumped hydro energy is stored as potential energy in the higher reservoir. Most of that energy can be converted back into electricity at the power rating. Quibbling about nothing is about the level of of relevance of Peter’s comments.

“BTW, the project is largely based on my conceptual study in 2009, but uses Talbingo as the lower reservoir instead of Blowering and needs three tunnels to do the job of one, so 1/3 the capacity for same cost as my conceptual study (which by the way was not viable).”

I call BS. Peter’s first reaction was to pontificate on not being able to create new water.

““While the feasibility study is the first step, this project could once again bring together the world’s best and brightest engineers and technicians to enhance a national icon.”

Ellison, You should give up. Your dumb comments are tiresome You don’t understand what you are talking about. You clearly have no understanding of hydro at all. Pumped storage doesn’t not provide any more energy, just as a car battery doesn’t supply any more energy. It just stores energy generated elsewhere (after losses). Hydro energy is limited by the water inflows. Snowy Hydro will get no more energy. It’s unbelievable how cocky you are and yet continually demonstrate your ignorance about the most basic concepts.

And claiming you worked on a sewer pipe at Jindabyne Dam as a jumior engineer is the the best you can do to show you have experience in hydro electric engineering. What a joke!

Really the comment was showing first hand exposure to ecological impacts at the base of the spillway. As an intro to ecological impacts of dams more generally.

But it was a fine sewer pipe. I originally had 40 cubic metres of septic sewage – with a $100,000 chemical injection unit – sitting in a pipe above Jindabyne Dam. It was replaced with a single pipe stand as the pipe emerged from the side of the hill and then went underground again. And I can calculate friction losses.

pumped hydro technology, which involves using cheap electricity to pump water uphill so it can be later released downhill through turbines, creating electricity when demand is high.

Where is this cheap energy coming from? Why isn’t it being used already? What’s the price of this cheap energy (including all subsidies, both visible and hidden)? How much of the time is a reliable, constant supply of this cheap energy available? What will be the price of energy for pumping and the sell price? How many GWh per year will be generated from the proposed pump storage scheme? If the proposed scheme is viable in Australia, why haven’t the rest of the world been building hundreds of them over the last three decades?

The quote comes from the Sydney Morning Herald – but it is reasonable.

“Pumped hydroelectric storage is a mature and established concept of energy storage as it has been in operation since the 1890s. It is the largest available grid storage system in the world constituting 97 per cent of the world’s total energy storage (~143GW over 40 countries).

The European Union and Japan have the biggest systems with net capacities of 38.3GW and 26.2GW respectively, and it acts as their major energy storage system. It has been traditionally used to balance the baseload power plants by allowing them to operate at peak efficiency and lowering the need for peaking plants that operate on gas or oil. With the rise in renewable energy penetration into the grid and the need to handle the intermittent nature of these energy sources, pumped hydro storage systems are being given serious thought to help abate the fluctuating output generated.” http://www.esdnews.com.au/pumped-hydro-storage-like-solar-wind/

The idea of course is to shift supply to higher demand periods. Peter should get up to speed on pumped hydro – and indeed on ow the wholesale electricity market works. And there is a picture of Jindabyne Dam at the link as well. If you squint you can see my pipe.

There is a feasibility study underway – which I will read when it is available. I am not leaping to judgement without some serious engineering work done first.

The best place to use pumped hydro in the US would be Hawaii- steep mountains that run right down into the sea, abundant sunshine.
Hawaii makes electricity by burning oil. Solar is less than a percent of generation.
The cheapness and ease of use of solar and pumped storage is something I really want to believe, but can’t.

At the root of the Ellison – Lange dispute here is the difference between power(MW) and energy (MWH). The link referenced by Ellison may be a source for confusion as it states: “The proposal could add up to 2000 megawatts of new renewable energy …” Energy is not measured in megawatts, but rather megawatt hours.

The quoted section is like saying two cities are 65 MPH apart, or that your car can reach a speed of 80 miles.

As with battery storage, pumped hydro results in a “net” loss of energy for the water processed. If you have flow into a facility which also has pumping capability the net can be positive because of the flow. Perhaps if energy that would otherwise be wasted is channeled into pumping hydro that can later be utilized, it might be thought of as providing energy. I haven’t seen where that case is being made, but maybe it is or can be.

Pumped storage has many benefits and has proved effective in many areas. But it is costly and often faces tremendous environmental challenges. Being effective in some areas, does not mean that it generically will be effective in many more applications.

There is no dispute on this – it is a trivial objection that wastes everyone’s time. It is part of the Ellison is dumb routine.

I quoted SnowyHydro deliberately – to make the point that it really isn’t a substantive issue. Power to energy is such a fundamental conversion – all you need is time. You could do it in your head or we could talk instantaneous energy instead of power ratings in deference to fatuous blogospheric quibbles.

Pumped hydro converts energy stored as potential energy into electrical energy at the power rating of the turbines over time. The power rating provides a simple comparison of the energy that can be produced while the water is available.

There are losses of course – from pump and turbine efficiency and pipe friction prominently. But the intention is to load shift supply to high demand periods using pumped hydro energy storage. It is potentially useful as a source to supplement supply in the early evening high demand period – as solar output declines. The idea is simple. Buy when prices on the spot market are low, store and sell when prices are high.

My throwaway line was about a concept announced by the Australian government last month on which a feasibility study is proceeding. Blog pontification is a bit premature.

The bigger news is that the government is backing HELE coal as the obvious way to go to replace an aging fleet of electricity generators.

Where is this cheap energy coming from? Why isn’t it being used already? What’s the price of this cheap energy (including all subsidies, both visible and hidden)? How much of the time is a reliable, constant supply of this cheap energy available? What will be the price of energy for pumping and the sell price? How many GWh per year will be generated from the proposed pump storage scheme? If the proposed scheme is viable in Australia, why haven’t the rest of the world been building hundreds of them over the last three decades?

You didn’t answer these questions. This suggests you do not understand the significant and relevance of them. They are key to the economic viability of a pumped hydro scheme. You need to know how much cheap energy is available per year (must be sustained for several hours at a time at a low price). You can sell about 75% to 80% of the MWh you purchased. You have to pay all the financing, fixed and operating costs out of the revenue. An operator at Tumut 3 some years ago, told a colleague they would not buy power at above $15/MWh and wouldn’t sell it at under $300/MWh.

Re arbitrage, he did tell me once, […]
they waited each night until the buy price for power for Tumut pumps was down to some $10-15/MWh.
Tumut pumping took some 10 hours, I think.
Snowy Hydro did not bid the output into the market on the following day until the spot price went above $300/MWh.

That’s a factor of 20 to 30 between buy price and sell price. Of course that is not required all the time to be viable. But the price differential required increases as the capacity factor decreases. If you are using solar and wind for pumping you are buying very expensive energy (you have to buy at the market price) and you will get very little energy per year if you are going to try to buy only when wind and solar are in excess. Solar will be in excess only at time of high prices during the day.

To make pumped hydro viable you need to buy cheap, reliable baseload power for around 6 hours every night and sell 75% to 80% of it at peak power prices the following day. And do this almost every day of the year. If you can’t do that it won’t be viable.This is why very few pumped storage projects have been built since the 1980’s. Gas is a cheaper way to provide peaking power. Solar, wind and pumped-hydro are ridiculously expensive.

To have any chance of being viable, you’d need cheap coal fired power from power stations like Hazelwood providing cheap power for 8 hours each night.

Try answering the questions at the top of this comment. You’d might learn something if you did.

Where is this cheap energy coming from? Why isn’t it being used already? What’s the price of this cheap energy (including all subsidies, both visible and hidden)? How much of the time is a reliable, constant supply of this cheap energy available? What will be the price of energy for pumping and the sell price? How many GWh per year will be generated from the proposed pump storage scheme? If the proposed scheme is viable in Australia, why haven’t the rest of the world been building hundreds of them over the last three decades?

I suspect the reason you didn’t answer them is that you do not understand the significant and relevance of them. They are key to the economic viability of a pumped hydro scheme. You need to know how much cheap energy is available per year (must be sustained for several hours at a time at a low price). You can sell about 75% to 80% of the MWh you purchased. You have to pay all the financing, fixed and operating costs out of the revenue. An operator at SnowyHydro some years ago, told a colleague they would not buy power at above $15/MWh and wouldn’t sell it at under $300/MWh.

Re arbitrage, he did tell me once, […]
they waited each night until the buy price for power for Tumut pumps was down to some $10-15/MWh.
Tumut pumping took some 10 hours, I think.
Snowy Hydro did not bid the output into the market on the following day until the spot price went above $300/MWh.

That’s a factor of 20 to 30 between buy price and sell price. Of course that is not required all the time to be viable. But the price differential required increases as the capacity factor decreases. If you are using solar and wind for pumping you are buying very expensive energy (you have to buy at the market price) and you will get very little energy per year if you are going to try to buy only when wind and solar are in excess. Solar will be in excess only at time of high prices during the day.

To make pumped hydro viable you need to buy cheap, reliable baseload power for around 6 hours every night and sell 75% to 80% of it at peak power prices the following day. And do this almost every day of the year. If you can’t do that it won’t be viable.This is why very few pumped storage projects have been built since the 1980’s. Gas is a cheaper way to provide peaking power. Solar, wind and pumped-hydro are ridiculously expensive.

To have any chance of being viable, you’d need cheap coal fired power from power stations like Hazelwood providing cheap power for 8 hours each night.

Try answering the questions at the top of this comment. You’d might learn something if you did.

Not really sure what Peter is saying anymore – or why. The electricity supply is aggregated on the grid – so there is no dedicated supply. But is would create an additional to cover peak demand in the early evening – when the solar supply is falling off. Potentially mitigating one of the issues with intermittent supply. Electricity wholesale prices vary over the day with demand.

Buy in low demand periods- store and release in periods of high demand. Conceptually – not difficult. Although there are cost and technical issues to be sorted through in the design process. If the answers were obvious you wouldn’t need feasibility studies.

Not really sure what Peter is saying anymore – or why. The electricity supply is aggregated on the grid – so there is no dedicated supply.

I’d suggest it’s you that doesn’t know what you are saying any more, not that you ever did on this subject.

You said in previous comments words to the effect the proposed pumped hydro scheme would use cheap power when solar and wind were excess to demand. Hence my questions that you did not answer. Especially, how many GWh per year and at what average price?

The electricity supply is aggregated on the grid

Exactly! So where is the cheap electricity coming from, how much is available in a year and at what average price (including all subsidies, both visible and hidden)?

The point I am making is the the cheap power you keep referring to does not exist. We’d need many plants with cost of electricity similar to Hazelwood to bring down the price of electricity for the whole NEM and provide cheap power for 6-8 hours every night. And for what benefit? It’s cheaper to use coal for baseload and gas and existing hydro for load following than new pumped hydro.

It is essentially a pumped storage proposal that would use energy from our 8% renewables that is otherwise unused to supply peak demand. In Australia that is summer afternoons and early evening. The capacity factor for Snowy hydro is about 9% I think I have read somewhere. Generally hydro capacity factors are cited as around 30%. Used for peak demand to maximise revenue.

So perhaps the opportunity for some relatively cheap storage of wind and solar energy with little additional environmental impact.

Just demonstration of his level of knowledge and understanding – i.e. negligible. Simple facts are wrong (e.g. SnowyHydo capacity factor). Ignores what he’s told, or more likely doesn’t bother to read comments before answering. Making up stuff on the fly. Trying to impress those who don’t know any better. Good example of why nothing he says should be trusted.

Peter gave the Snowy Mountain hydro capacity factor as 15% on average. Elsewhere I have read 9%. It depends on seasonal, inter-annual and multidecadal variability. Which almost everywhere is immense – but especially in Australia – and is one of the keys to understanding climatic variability.

As a working hydrologist – I don’t put much stock in the precision of these numbers. It is moreover irrelevant to pumped hydro storage.

Misleading FUD. Stop trying to confuse and misinform, Ellison. The energy (GWh/a) available from a hydro system is dependent on the water inflows and the hydraulic head. It is the energy available (over a long period) that is the key constraint on a hydro system. You can build large generating capacity (MW) to provide peaking power for a short period which gives a low capacity factor, or if you have high flows as on some rivers (not Australia) you can have run of river hydro with high capacity factors.

Snowy Mountains Hydro capacity factor in 2015 was 13.6%. It was averaging 15% until the long drought that ended in 2007. Over the decade to 2007, the average capacity factor was ~14.6% (from memory).

Lake Eucumbene is the main storage reservoir for the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Its storage capacity is equivalent to thirteen Sydney Harbour volumes. It was down to 9.4% of its storage capacity in 2007 at the end of a decade long drought. This is why the capacity factor of the Snowy Mountains Scheme must be an averaged over a long period, at least a decade.

9% CF for the snowy mountains hydro generation is wrong as I’ve told you repeatedly. The fact you believe a news paper article and don’t check your facts when it is pointed out you are wrong and keep repeating the same incorrect nonsense shows you cannot be trusted on anything. And you are incapable of acknowledging when wrong. Intellectually dishonest.

It is such nonsense and I am sure that the discussion is well past having any point at all.

That is true with every discussion with you because you dodge weave, avoid addressing the topic, avoid the key questions and don’t admit when wrong. Intellectually dishonest.

The relevance of the capacity factor for pumped hydro is because the required difference buy minus sell price for the plant to be viable is inversely proportional to the capacity factor. You keep dodging the key point – the financial viability. Intellectually dishonest.

Insisting on a high precision for this is just pedantic nonsense. The capacity factor is not even half that for wind and solar – which Peter complains so much about. The difference is that it is dispatchable. The capacity factor for the existing 4GW flow through systems limits the availability of hydro electricity. The additional 2GW pumped capacity is limited by the amount of water that can be pumped and stored.

Persistent drought is a feature of the Australian landscape – and inflows so variable – that I am comfortable with the range of factors that I quoted. I have not worked it myself – but I am a hydrologist – and I have worked with Snowy Mountains precipitation data. I am certainly not obliged to believe Peter’s bald assertions.

‘The relevance of the capacity factor for pumped hydro is because the required difference buy minus sell price for the plant to be viable is inversely proportional to the capacity factor. You keep dodging the key point – the financial viability.’

So he drops the objection of where the electricity is coming from – and shifts the goal posts to something horribly obscure and imponderable. There seem to be two ways the paragraph can be read – but I assume he is not referring to the pumped hydro capacity factor – there isn’t one as such. He seems to be suggesting that the water availability in the flow through system changes the market dynamics to make pumped hydro financially unviable. A neat Catch 22 – if in fact there was any analysis at all behind it.

Conceptually – the purpose of pumped hydro is to shift supply to high demand periods and to compensate for intermittent solar sources in particular. Peak demand is in the Australian summer in late afternoon and early evening. Solar panels can supply useful amounts of energy in the afternoon and pumped storage can supplement in the evening by converting stored energy to electrical energy at a rate of an additional 2GW. The principle is to buy in a low demand period on the 30 minute aggregated spot wholesale electricity market and sell in high demand periods. And there are all sorts of factors relevant to the spot market prices – Peter’s simplistic notions notwithstanding.

The technical and financial details will be worked out in the feasibility study announced last month.

Big news: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-energy-chief-carbon-dioxide-prime.html
The article is stupid but the news is great. Perry stands with Pruitt in endorsing skepticism. Let’s hope he roots out some of the AGW bias in DOE’s massive science program. Especially CMIP, which basically requires the modeling world to assume AGW to support the IPCC.

TE
reading the abstract they seem to say the temperature models were correct in late 20th century and further improvements resolve the variation btwn 21st and models. Haven’t looked at the full article yet.

For a doubling of CO2 the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is from 1.5 C to 4.5 C with 66% confidence. – AR5
For a doubling of CO2 the transient climate sensitivity (TCS) is from 1.0 C to 3.0 C with 90% confidence. – AR4

I just noticed the X to 3X in both ranges. Why is the intermediate in the same ratio as the equilibrium? Is this the climate iron ratio? No.

From here to there the bounds are kind of the same, but more tightly constrained on the way to there. So we could have a hockey stick with a blade near the end. So when we are about to get there, as things settle down, we can get a dramatic up or down turn. That’s my kind of equilibrium.

GHG emissions are not a threat and not dangerous. GHG emissions are more likely to be beneficial than dangerous. Therefore, there is no valid justification for economically irrational policies – such as climate policies and interventions to favour some and penalize other power generation technologies.

Weather dependent renewables are hugely expensive when all their costs, both visible and invisible, are included. None would be built for grid connected power supply if not for the huge subsidies. And if their existing subsides were stopped most would go broke quickly.

Subsidies and all incentives for renewables should be stopped, asap.

Coal power stations are the cheapest way to provide most of Australia’s power, with gas and existing hydro providing peak and some shoulder power.

It is unlikely any new hydro power is feasible in Australia

It is unlikely substantial new pumped-hydro capacity is feasible. We’ve had endless studies and none of the proposals have been anywhere near to being feasible.

Market distortions – i.e. government interventions – should be removed and allow a genuine market to operate (with light regulation to ensure security of supply, reliability and fair competition).

HELE coal is the leading contender for new generation capacity in Australia. Nothing further need be said. Along with rationalisation of the gas market – there is a new local supply rule – do not export unless you can meet the local demand – and reducing cost-plus contracts for grid architecture – should see prices in the wholesale and retail market coming off the boil.

I would not rush to judgement on pumped hydro and I have done feasibility studies on very large projects. The proposal – on which a feasibility study is being undertaken – is being touted as a $1.5-2.0 billion project for a 2GW capacity. Making some rough and ready assumptions – much of engineering is a Fermi problem – I can see $140 million a year in revenue. It should also be able to sell into the green energy target of 20% renewables.

Sea Levels Are Stable To Falling At About Half Of The World’s Tide Gauges [link]

When oceans are warmer and more thawed, such as now and in the warm periods in the past, there is more ocean effect snowfall on land and it snows more until it gets cold enough to freeze the oceans.

Leap second data shows spin rate of earth has increased. There were less leap seconds added in the most recent decade than there were during the first decade of atomic clock data. Inertia of earth has decreased, not increased, as it would with an ocean that did rise.

“Scientists believe they have settled one of the great polar puzzles − why Antarctica is warming at a rate so much slower than the Arctic region. And the answer is a simple one: Antarctica is so much higher.”

These scientists are stupid. They never heard of adiabatic lapse rate? This is known like 100 years ago by high school kids. Around 10 C colder per km altitude. Ave. elevation of Antarctica is 2.5 km so 25 C colder than sea level. What does the thermometers say in North pole vs. South pole in summer?
North = 0 C
South = -28 C
Almost equal to the adiabatic lapse rate. No complex computer modeling needed by dumb scientists. Just a little common sense